Unclear Vision Quotes

Relationships are treated like Dixie cups. They are the same. They are disposable. If it does not work, drop it, throw it away, get another. Committed bonds (including marriage) cannot last when this is the prevailing logic. Most of us are unclear about what to do to protect and strengthen caring bonds when our self-centered needs are not being met.

I don’t want to do this. I can’t explain how badly I don’t want to hurt Julian. But when has what I wanted ever mattered? My people need this. Eo sacrificed happiness and her life. I can sacrifice my wants. I can sacrifice this slender princeling. I can even sacrifice my soul. I make the first move toward Julian. “Darrow …,” he murmurs. Darrow was kind in Lykos. I am not. I hate myself for it. I think I’m crying, because my vision is unclear.

During my travels in India I met a man at an ashram who was about 45-50. A little older than everyone else. He tells me a story. He had retired and he was traveling on a motorcycle with his wife on the back. While stopped at a red light, a truck ran into them from behind and killed his wife. He was badly injured and almost died. He went into a coma and it was unclear if he’d ever walk again. When he finally came out of it and found out what had happened, he naturally was devastated and heartbroken. Not to mention physically broken. He knew that his road ahead of rehabilitation, both physically and psychologically, was going to be hard. While he had given up, he had one friend who was a yoga teacher who said, “We're going to get you started on the path to recovery.” So, she kept going over to his place, and through yoga, helped him be able to walk again. After he could walk and move around again, he decided to head to India and explore some yoga ashrams. While he was there he started to learn about meditation and Hinduism and Buddhism. He told me that he never would have thought he’d ever go down this path. He would have probably laughed at anyone who goes to India to find themselves. I asked, “Did you get what you were hoping for?” He said, "Even though I lost my wife, it turned out to be the greatest thing that ever happened to me because it put me on this path.

I’m so close to crying, I don’t think I can stop myself. They’re alive. They’re alive and nothing else matters. Tears are already starting to burn my eyes, clouding my vision. Kiaran looks at me with an expression I’ve never seen on him. It takes me a moment to realize it’s dawning horror. “Kam. Kam, don’t do that. Don’t cry. Don’t—” Then I’m crying and he puts his arms around me in quite possibly the most awkward, stiff embrace I’ve ever had in my life. And I adore every second of it. Aithinne speaks from behind us. “I admit to being somewhat unclear on the function of human tears,” she says. “So we’re sad about this? Should I menace someone?” In lieu of a response, the only thing I can manage is something of a half-laugh, half-sob, because they’re alive and I haven’t felt like this in so long. “For god’s sake, Aithinne,” Kiaran says, his voice rumbling through his chest, “put the blade away. You’re not going to stab Kam’s idiot friends.” Then, after a moment: “On second thought, the Seer really serves no purpose . . .” “Oh, shush.” I look up at him, whisking the tears off my cheeks. “Don’t ruin this. It helps if you don’t speak.” Then I press my face back into his chest. “And if you stop responding to my hug like I’m torturing you.” Kiaran makes some attempt to relax, but he could use lessons in hugging. He ends up with one hand shoved up in my hair and the other giving my back a there there pat, but it’s the thought that counts

Here my cry would be heard by 200 or twice 200, but what about the 200 million? Vaguely, unclearly, I had a vision that someday I would cry out to the 200 million.

Leaders instill courage in the hearts of those who follow. This rarely happens through words alone. It generally requires action. It goes back to what we said earlier: Somebody has to go first. By going first, the leader furnishes confidence to those who follow. As a next generation leader, you will be called upon to go first. That will require courage. But in stepping out you will give the gift of courage to those who are watching. What do I believe is impossible to do in my field, but if it could be done would fundamentally change my business? What has been done is safe. But to attempt a solution to a problem that plagues an entire industry - in my case, the local church - requires courage. Unsolved problems are gateways to the future. To those who have the courage to ask the question and the tenacity to hang on until they discover or create an answer belongs the future. Don’t allow the many good opportunities to divert your attention from the one opportunity that has the greatest potential. Learn to say no. There will always be more opportunities than there is time to pursue them. Leaders worth following are willing to face and embrace current reality regardless of how discouraging or embarrassing it might be. It is impossible to generate sustained growth or progress if your plan for the future is not rooted in reality. Be willing to face the truth regardless of how painful it might be. If fear causes you to retreat from your dreams, you will never give the world anything new. it is impossible to lead without a dream. When leaders are no longer willing to dream, it is only a short time before followers are unwilling to follow. Will I allow my fear to bind me to mediocrity? Uncertainty is a permanent part of the leadership landscape. It never goes away. Where there is no uncertainty, there is no longer the need for leadership. The greater the uncertainty, the greater the need for leadership. Your capacity as a leader will be determined by how well you learn to deal with uncertainty. My enemy is not uncertainty. It is not even my responsibility to remove the uncertainty. It is my responsibility to bring clarity into the midst of the uncertainty. As leaders we can afford to be uncertain, but we cannot afford to be unclear. People will follow you in spite of a few bad decisions. People will not follow you if you are unclear in your instruction. As a leader you must develop the elusive skill of leading confidently and purposefully onto uncertain terrain. Next generation leaders must fear a lack of clarity more than a lack of accuracy. The individual in your organization who communicates the clearest vision will often be perceived as the leader. Clarity is perceived as leadership. Uncertainty exposes a lack of knowledge. Pretending exposes a lack of character. Express your uncertainty with confidence. You will never maximize your potential in any area without coaching. It is impossible. Self-evaluation is helpful, but evaluation from someone else is essential. You need a leadership coach. Great leaders are great learners. God, in His wisdom, has placed men and women around us with the experience and discernment we often lack. Experience alone doesn’t make you better at anything. Evaluated experience is what enables you to improve your performance. As a leader, what you don’t know can hurt you. What you don’t know about yourself can put a lid on your leadership. You owe it to yourself and to those who have chosen to follow you to open the doors to evaluation. Engage a coach. Success doesn’t make anything of consequence easier. Success just raises the stakes. Success brings with it the unanticipated pressure of maintaining success. The more successful you are as a leader, the more difficult this becomes. There is far more pressure at the top of an organization than you might imagine.

A woman named Cynthia once told me a story about the time her father had made plans to take her on a night out in San Francisco. Twelve-year-old Cynthia and her father had been planning the “date” for months. They had a whole itinerary planned down to the minute: she would attend the last hour of his presentation, and then meet him at the back of the room at about four-thirty and leave quickly before everyone tried to talk to him. They would catch a tram to Chinatown, eat Chinese food (their favourite), shop for a souvenir, see the sights for a while and then “catch a flick” as her dad liked to say. Then they would grab a taxi back to the hotel, jump in the pool for a quick swim (her dad was famous for sneaking in when the pool was closed), order a hot fudge sundae from room service, and watch the late, late show. They discussed the details over and over again before they left. The anticipation was part of the whole experience. This was all going according to plan until, as her father was leaving the convention centre, he ran into an old college friend and business associate. It had been years since they had seen each other, and Cynthia watched as they embraced enthusiastically. His friend said, in effect: “I am so glad you are doing some work with our company now. When Lois and I heard about it we thought it would be perfect. We want to invite you, and of course Cynthia, to get a spectacular seafood dinner down at the Wharf!” Cynthia’s father responded: “Bob, it’s so great to see you. Dinner at the wharf sounds great!” Cynthia was crestfallen. Her daydreams of tram rides and ice cream sundaes evaporated in an instant. Plus, she hated seafood and she could just imagine how bored she would be listening to the adults talk all night. But then her father continued: “But not tonight. Cynthia and I have a special date planned, don’t we?” He winked at Cynthia and grabbed her hand and they ran out of the door and continued with what was an unforgettable night in San Francisco. As it happens, Cynthia’s father was the management thinker Stephen R. Covey (author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) who had passed away only weeks before Cynthia told me this story. So it was with deep emotion she recalled that evening in San Francisco. His simple decision “Bonded him to me forever because I knew what mattered most to him was me!” she said.5 One simple answer is we are unclear about what is essential. When this happens we become defenceless. On the other hand, when we have strong internal clarity it is almost as if we have a force field protecting us from the non-essentials coming at us from all directions. With Rosa it was her deep moral clarity that gave her unusual courage of conviction. With Stephen it was the clarity of his vision for the evening with his loving daughter. In virtually every instance, clarity about what is essential fuels us with the strength to say no to the non-essentials. Stephen R. Covey, one of the most respected and widely read business thinkers of his generation, was an Essentialist. Not only did he routinely teach Essentialist principles – like “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing” – to important leaders and heads of state around the world, he lived them.6 And in this moment of living them with his daughter he made a memory that literally outlasted his lifetime. Seen with some perspective, his decision seems obvious. But many in his shoes would have accepted the friend’s invitation for fear of seeming rude or ungrateful, or passing up a rare opportunity to dine with an old friend. So why is it so hard in the moment to dare to choose what is essential over what is non-essential?

The second solution is communitarianism, also baptised assimilation. It is a question of a compromise, inspired by the United States and rather unclear theories of intellectual ‘ethnopluralism’, Right-wing and Left-wing. People born abroad keep their ‘culture’, but adhere to a common ‘minimum’, a global Social Contract.[140] Society becomes a pacific kaleidoscope, united by a soft and pacifying deus ex machina.[141] This utopian vision, Rousseauian and adolescent, still defended by learned old fogies, who flirt just a little with apartheid (whence its partisans on the extreme Right) has been tried by all the European states. The result has been total failure. There has been no ‘assimilation’ of ‘ethnic communities’ cohabiting peacefully. On the contrary, ethnic civil war is just around the corner.

The general point: the story process keeps the vision clear and the action moving. But if we do not notate the vision accurately, if we accept some phrase we should have discarded, if we allow to stand some sentence that is not as sharp as we can make it, then the vision is not changed in the same way it would have been otherwise: the new sections of the vision will not light up quite so clearly, perhaps not at all. As well, the movement of the vision—its action—will not develop in the same way if we put down a different phrase. And though the inaccurate employment of the story process may still get you to the end of the tale, the progress of the story process, which eventually registers in the reader’s mind as “the plot,” is going to be off: an inaccuracy in either of the two story process elements, the envisioning or the notation, automatically detracts from the other. When they go off enough, the progress of the story process will appear unclear, or clumsy, or just illogical.

One early terracotta statuette from Catal Huyuk in Anatolia depicts an enthroned female in the act of giving birth, supported by two cat-like animals that form her seat (Plate 1). This figure has been identified as a 'birth goddess' and it is this type of early image that has led a number of feminist scholars to posit a 'reign of the goddess' in ancient Near Eastern prehistory. Maria Gimbutas, for whom such images are proof of a perfect matriarchal society in 'Old Europe' , presents an ideal vision in which a socially egalitarian matriarchal culture was overthrown by a destructive patriarchy (Gimbutas 1991). Gerda Lerner has argued for a similar situation in the ancient Near East; however, she does not discuss nude figurines at any length (Lerner 1986a: 147). More recently, critiques of the matriarchal model of prehistory have pointed out the flaws in this methodology (e.g. Conkey and Tringham 1995; Meskell 1995; Goodison and Morris 1998). In all these critiques the identification of such figures as goddesses is rejected as a modern myth. There is no archaeological evidence that these ancient communities were in fact matriarchal, nor is there any evidence that female deities were worshipped exclusively. Male gods may have worshipped simultaneously with the 'mother goddesses' if such images are indeed representations of deities. Nor do such female figures glorify or show admiration for the female body; rather they essentialise it, reducing it to nothing more nor less than a reproductive vessel. The reduction of the head and the diminution of the extremities seem to stress the female form as potentially reproductive, but to what extent this condition was seen as sexual, erotic or matriarchal is unclear. ....Despite the correct rejection of the 'Mother Goddess' and utopian matriarchy myths by recent scholarship, we should not loose track of the overwhelming evidence that the image of female nudity was indeed one of power in ancient Mesopotamia. The goddess Ishtar/Inanna was but one of several goddesses whose erotic allure was represented as a powerful attribute in the literature of the ancient Near East. In contact to the naked male body which was the focus of a variety of meanings in the visual arts, female nudity was always associated with sexuality, and in particular with powerful sexual attraction, Akkadian *kuzbu*. This sexuality was not limited to Ishtar and her cult. As a literary topos, sensuousness is a defining quality for both mortal women and goddesses. In representational art, the nude woman is portrayed in a provocative pose, as the essence of the feminine. For femininity, sexual allure, *kuzbu*, the ideal of the feminine, was thus expressed as nudity in both visual and verbal imagery. While several iconographic types of unclothed females appear in Mesopotamian representations of the historical period - nursing mothers, women in acts of sexual intercourse, entertainers such as dancers and musicians, and isolated frontally represented nudes with or without other attributes - and while these nude female images may have different iconographic functions, the ideal of femininity and female sexuality portrayed in them is similar. -Zainab Bahrani, Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia

Need More Clarity? If greater clarity is what you need, shift your thinking up the natural planning scale. People are often very busy (action) but nonetheless experience confusion and a lack of clear direction. They need to pull out their plan, or create one (organize). If there’s a lack of clarity at the planning level, there’s probably a need for more brainstorming to generate a sufficient inventory of ideas to create trust in the plan. If the brainstorming session gets bogged down with fuzzy thinking, the focus should shift back to the vision of the outcome, ensuring that the reticular filter in the brain will open up to deliver the best how-to thinking. If the outcome/ vision is unclear, you must return to a clean analysis of why you’re engaged in the situation in the first place (purpose).

weren’t clear yet, they would work toward developing clarity of goals because clarity is a must. Unclear or unnecessary complexity is an enemy to accomplishment. Winners apply and align both EQ and logic with purpose. Their empowering and positive beliefs and emotions radiate within themselves and onto others. They are purposefully and persistently action-oriented because without astute and effective execution, nothing matters. Strong leaders, especially successful and creative entrepreneurs, also have a compelling vision. I believe that a great way to predict the future is to create it (in my case, a vision of the future in which writing and publishing this book has

I have spent almost all my life getting to know and understand I. From my point of view, most human problems are due to non-discovering self and unclear responses to basic life questions. I also believes living is meaningless without knowing the cause of existence. The book is the fruit of his struggle and research for self-recognition, written with the rational, step-by-step and profound vision that leads to achieving the real concept of peace, glory and perception of the truth of life.

Where there is little self-definition, there is a vague vision. Where there is an unclear vision, the people perish in their own anxious reactivity. They have no head and are headed nowhere. Where there is self-definition, there is a clear vision. Where there is a clear vision, there is a response to the future.

She’ll eventually learn the truth about the day her grandmother died. I’ve seen it, though admittedly unclearly, in my visions.

create what your intuition is asking you to create. do this as an act of service. you have no idea whom you may end up helping or even the lives you may save simply by following the truth of your heart. don't let fear stop you from listening to your inner calling. don't let an unclear path discourage you from taking steps into the unknown. the greatest you arises when you begin to embrace the space beyond your comfort zone. you don't need to have all the answers right now to eventually be successful. you just need to be willing to take one step at a time. embrace challenge. remember how strong you are and how much you have already overcome. you don't need to move quickly. even slow movement will get you where you want to go. let yourself live in your power. you hold a unique vision, and that is your gift to the world.

on the steps to the cross there were stumbles not by you but by us. mixed signals, cross purposes, bad karmas how could we miss your loving so clear. mixed signals, cross purposes, bad karmas our answers were wanting our visions unclear.

To criticise or appreciate, to teach or learn, adopt the way of vision, acceptance, boldness with the clarity and neutrality, not the diplomatic, jealous or unclear conduct that establish the confusion, lack of knowledge and intellect.

Lastly, vision is not a solution to a problem. If it is seen in that light, when the “problem” of low morale or unclear strategic direction goes away, the energy behind the vision will go away also. Building shared vision must be seen as a central element of the daily work of leaders.

As though the fuzz of reminiscence had spilled into the landscape, her entire field of vision became a shifting overlap of colourful brushstrokes, even more unclear and undefined than her thoughts.

One of the obstacles in gaining traction and achieving your vision is that roles, responsibilities, expectations, and job descriptions are unclear due to structural issues.

To criticize, or appreciate, to teach or learn, adopt the way of vision, acceptance, boldness with clarity and neutrality, not the diplomatic, jealous or unclear conduct that establishes the confusion, lack of knowledge, and intellect.

The borders of existence began to melt away and I soon found that I could even will my vision unclear, and then bring it back into focus. It all had to do with some mechanism behind my eyes.

The same motif is found in the 16th and 17th Century in the Italian countryside, more specifically Friuli, where the term benandanti was given to women who participated in the procession of the dead. It was also referring to others, many of them men, who declared that they were going out at night with fennel stalks to fight for the fertility of the crops against the malandanti armed with canes of sorghum. They further said that they took on the shape of mice, butterflies, hares or other animals to either journey to the procession of the dead or in their night fights. It is unclear in Ginzburg’s account whether we are here encountering two different classes of witches or if these terms refer to the same witch but in his or her aggressive and hostile aspect.