“
And there are always people who find their lives have become so unsupportable they believe the best thing they could do would be to hasten their transition to another plane of existence.'
'They kill themselves, you mean?' said Bod. [...]
'Indeed.'
'Does it work? Are they happier dead?'
'Sometimes. Mostly, no. It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (The Graveyard Book)
“
There are always people who find their lives have become so unsupportable they believe the best thing they could do would be to hasten their transition to another plane of existence."
"They kill themselves, you mean?" said Bod. He was about eight years old, wide-eyed and inquisitive, and he was not stupid.
"Indeed."
"Does it work? Are they happier dead?"
"Sometimes. Mostly, no. It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (The Graveyard Book)
“
I realized the only reason i felt unsupported was because i wasn't supporting myself. The only reason i felt alone was because i had ignored the calling of my soul. And for the first time i was able to see beyond the devastation and truly feel the bountiful light of grace
”
”
Rebecca Campbell (Light is the New Black: A Guide to Answering Your Soul's Callings and Working Your Light)
“
Philosophy needs vision and argument… there is something disappointing about a philosophical work that contains arguments, however good, which are not inspired by some genuine vision, and something disappointing about a philosophical work that contains a vision, however inspiring, which is unsupported by arguments…Speculation about how things hang together requires… the ability to draw out conceptual distinctions and connections, and the ability to argue… But speculative views, however interesting or well supported by arguments or insightful, are not all we need. We also need what [the philosopher Myles] Burnyeat called ‘vision’ – and I take that to mean vision as to how to live our lives, and how to order our societies.
”
”
Hilary Putnam
“
Why is it that you guys are so conservative in your views, in the face of the almost complete lack of understanding of what is going on in your field?” I asked. The answer was as simple as it was surprising. “If we [cosmologists] don’t accept some common picture of the universe, however unsupported by the facts, there would be nothing to bind us together as a scientific community. Since it is unlikely that any picture that we use will be falsified in our lifetime, one theory is as good as any other.” The explanation was social, not scientific.
”
”
Per Bak (How Nature Works: The Science of Self-organized Criticality)
“
And there are always people who find their lives have become so unsupportable they believe the best thing they could do would be to hasten their transition to another plane of existence.” “They kill themselves, you mean?” said Bod. He was about eight years old, wide-eyed and inquisitive, and he was not stupid. “Indeed.” “Does it work? Are they happier dead?” “Sometimes. Mostly, no. It’s like the people who believe they’ll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn’t work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean.” “Sort of,” said Bod.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (The Graveyard Book)
“
Those who support such survivors of abuse often find it difficult to hear the reality of those survivors' lives and experience and are often unsupported themselves. Rather than being supported, workers are often ridiculed, castigated or accused of being gullible or of giving the survivor false memories. Many workers work in isolation and a climate of hostility and are unable to talk about the work they do.
Yes, despite all the odds, survivors of ritual abuse are beginning to speak out about their experiences, and some people, mainly in voluntary organisations, are beginning to listen to them and support them.
[Published 2001]
”
”
Laurie Matthew (Who Dares Wins)
“
…forensic science was facing a sudden reckoning. The advent of DNA analysis in the late 1980s had not only transformed the future of criminal investigations; it also illuminated the past, holding old convictions, and the forensic work that helped win them, up to scrutiny. Rather than affirming the soundness of forensic science, DNA testing exposed its weaknesses. Of the 250 DNA exonerations that occurred by 2010 throughout the United States, shoddy forensic work — which ranged from making basic lab errors to advancing claims unsupported by science — had contributed to half of them, according to a review by the Innocence Project. The sheer number of people who were imprisoned using faulty science called into question the premise of forensics itself.
”
”
Pamela Colloff (Blood Will Tell)
“
I hope,’ stammered Mr. Limbkins: ‘I hope the magistrates will not form the opinion that the authorities have been guilty of any improper conduct, on the unsupported testimony of a child.’ ‘The magistrates are not called upon to pronounce any opinion on the matter,’ said the second old gentleman sharply. ‘Take the boy back to the workhouse, and treat him kindly. He seems to want
”
”
Charles Dickens (The Complete Works of Charles Dickens)
“
I hope,’ stammered Mr. Limbkins: ‘I hope the magistrates will not form the opinion that the authorities have been guilty of any improper conduct, on the unsupported testimony of a child.’ ‘The magistrates are not called upon to pronounce any opinion on the matter,’ said the second old gentleman sharply. ‘Take the boy back to the workhouse, and treat him kindly. He seems to want it.
”
”
Charles Dickens (The Complete Works of Charles Dickens)
“
I made sure to work hard, she said, and to achieve the highest results, but no matter how hard I worked there was always a boy there, level with me, who appeared to be less out of breath and to be taking things in his stride; and so I cultivated the art, she said, of nonchalance, and gave every impression of being less well-prepared than I was, until one day I found that this impression had become a reality, and that I achieved even more by leaving a few things to chance and by taking a leap of faith, such as the child takes when the training wheels come off the bicycle and it finds itself cycling unsupported for the first time.
”
”
Rachel Cusk (Kudos)
“
As negroes moved from unionism toward political action, white labor in the North not only moved in the opposite direction from political action to union organization, but also evolved the American Blindspot for the Negro and his problems. It lost interest and vital touch with Southern labor and acted as though the millions of laborers in the South did not exist.
Thus labor went into the great war of 1877 against Northern capitalists unsupported by the black man, and the black man went his way in the South to strengthen and consolidate his power, unsupported by Northern labor. Suppose for a moment that Northern labor had stopped the bargain of 1876 and maintained the power of the labor vote in the South; and suppose that the Negro with new and dawning consciousness of the demands of labor as differentiated from the demands of capitalists, had used his vote more specifically for the benefit of white labor, South and North?
”
”
W.E.B. Du Bois (Black Reconstruction in America)
“
The more he worked around the PPPI, the more he got the feeling that he was onto something. People were lying to him, misdirecting him. He couldn’t exactly put a finger on why he thought that, but he’d learned the hard way not to ignore even unsupported intuition.
”
”
John Sandford (Extreme Prey (Lucas Davenport, #26))
“
When you live in a world that is unsupportive and outright threatening—in the education system, prison system, health care system, and most workplaces—you are existing in an almost constant state of trauma.
”
”
Nicole LePera (How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self)
“
In springtime when I lived at the White House, we used to plant what’s called a “three sisters” vegetable patch in our garden on the South Lawn, mixing a crop of corn, beans, and squash together in one place. This is a traditional Native American method for growing food in a resourceful way, one that’s been used for many hundreds of years and is based on the idea that each type of plant has something vital to offer the others: The corn grows tall and creates a natural pole for the bean plants to climb. The beans provide nitrogen, a nutrient that helps the other plants grow more efficiently, and the squash stays low to the ground, its large, spreading leaves helping to block weeds and keep the soil moist. The plants grow at different rates; the vegetables harvest at different times. But the mix provides a system of mutual protection and benefit—the tall and the small continually working together. It’s not just the corn, and not just the beans, but rather the corn and the beans and the squash combined that yield a healthy crop. The balance comes from the combination. I’ve started to think about both my life and our wider human community in these terms. We are here to share benefits and protection. Our balance rests upon this ideal, the richness of these combinations. If I begin to feel out of sync, if I’m feeling unsupported or overwhelmed, I try to take stock of what my garden holds, what I’ve planted and what I still need to mix in: What’s feeding my soil? What’s helping to block the weeds? Am I cultivating both the small and the tall?
”
”
Michelle Obama (The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times)
“
It is our ability to reason logically, solve problems, multitask, and control ourselves that allows us to manage work, family, and so many other crucial parts of our lives with wisdom, creativity, and intelligence. To do this, we have to be deliberate and attentive and flexible, which we are capable of doing thanks to what we can think of as the CEO of the human brain—our executive functions, which are also vulnerable to the incursions of an unsupportive inner voice.
”
”
Ethan Kross (Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It)
“
That day, when it struck him that liking the work and being forced to work in an unsupportive environment were completely different matters, he requested to switch departments. Overnight, he gave up what he enjoyed. He stopped coding. He refused to work overtime. And he’d never once regretted his decision.
”
”
Hwang Bo-Reum (Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop)
“
The Shriver Report reveals this quiet reality: The people who we expect to raise us, care for us, and work to support us are too often left unsupported and uncared for.
”
”
Maria Shriver (The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back from the Brink)
“
I’ve learned that I need to do what’s right for me and trust myself. I really do enjoy my own company. I don’t want to waste my time anymore. I hope I’ll find people I can trust. I’m not going to try to make it work with people who are distant or unsupportive.
”
”
Lindsay C. Gibson (Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents)
“
It’s hard for a child to accept superlatives like “great” and “excellent,” when they don’t match his own perception. Often such praise causes him to focus on his weaknesses instead of his strengths. And if a child does accept our proud parental pronouncements at face value, it might cause other problems down the line. We’re not giving him a realistic picture of his abilities. Where can you go from “great” and “excellent”? Why would you put in the hard work to improve? We need an alternative to the unsupported superlative!
”
”
Joanna Faber (How to Talk When Kids Won't Listen: Whining, Fighting, Meltdowns, Defiance, and Other Challenges of Childhood)
“
a good goal, or good objective, flows out of a process of problem solving. A good objective has the form of a task—set up operations in Australia, work with a particular customer to solve a product quality problem, create a breakaway team to focus on developing a better waterproof coating, and so on. Starting with unsupported goals—like gain market share—lacks entrepreneurial insight and tries to get performance by flogging the system.
”
”
Richard P. Rumelt (The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists)
“
Look for the above moods as you practice your katas . Once you notice your mood, you’re on your way to making it work for you. Supportive moods wonder perplexity serenity/acceptance patience ambition resolution confidence trust Unsupportive moods confusion resignation frustration arrogance impatience boredom fear/anxiety overwhelm lack of confidence
distrust This list of moods comes from Gloria Flores’ book, pages 20 and 25, respectively.
”
”
Hal Macomber (Mastering Lean Leadership with 40 Katas (The Pocket Sensei - Vol.1))
“
After accepting her anger, Jade could see her healing fantasy clearly for the first time. She had thought she could heal her family by being extremely loving. Here’s how she put it: “I tried to see everybody as good. I thought everyone loved one another. I was naive. I thought that if you were nice to people, at the end of the day things would get fixed. I thought that my parents would actually love me, and that my brother and sister might care about what I’m interested in. But now I’ve learned that I need to do what’s right for me and trust myself. I really do enjoy my own company. I don’t want to waste my time anymore. I hope I’ll find people I can trust. I’m not going to try to make it work with people who are distant or unsupportive. I’ll be cordial and polite, but I’m not moving in close just to be disappointed.
”
”
Lindsay C. Gibson (Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents)
“
As social animals, we feel stress when we feel unsupported. That subconscious unease, the feeling that we are responsible for ourselves and no one else is there to help, the feeling we get that most of the people with whom we work care primarily about themselves, is, to our primitive brain, quite scary. And the problem is not with the people, it is with the environment
”
”
Simon Sinek (Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't)
“
Often as people start the journey towards developing greater self-compassion roadblocks appear. One of these might be the environment in which they work or love. Unfortunately, many people work in organisational settings that are toxic. Maybe the work is demanding, colleagues are critical towards each other or superiors are unsupportive. In some examples, workers in conditions like these are given mindfulness and self-compassion programs to make things better, but this totally neglects the systemic changes needed to make the workplace healthier. It also implies the problem is not the workplace structure of culture, but the individual. It suggests that if you just had greater resilience, mindfulness or self-compassion you would be able to cope with the demands.
”
”
James Kirby (Choose Compassion: Why it matters and how it works)
“
There is not one question in the ACEs test about overt racism—such as discrimination and abuse, which are obvious forms of racial trauma—let alone any reference to the subtler, more pervasive and harmful forms of bigotry and bias that exist in the infrastructure of society. When you live in a world that is unsupportive and outright threatening—in the education system, prison system, health care system, and most workplaces—you are existing in an almost constant state of trauma. Marginalized groups, especially BIPOC, are navigating systemic oppression, discriminatory laws, and a prejudicial framework that may place them squarely into “a state of relative helplessness,” the essence of Scaer’s definition of trauma.
”
”
Nicole LePera (How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self)
“
One might think that the explosion of new media outlets produced by the digital revolution would multiply checks on government power and that increased competition among different news outlets might encourage them to adopt higher standards. The reverse seems to be true, alas: instead of an ever-more vigiliant “fourth estate,” the growing role of cable news channels, the Internet, online publishing, the blogosphere, and social media seems to be making the media environment less accountable than ever before. Citizens can choose which version of a nearly infinite number of “realities” to read, listen to, or watch. Anonymous individuals and foreign intelligence agencies disseminate “fake news” that is all too often taken seriously, and such “news” sites as Breitbart, the Drudge Report, and InfoWars compete for viewers not by working harder to ferret out the truth, but by trafficking in rumors, unsupported accusations, and conspiracy theories. Leading politicians—most notoriously, Donald Trump himself—have given these outlets greater credibility by repeating their claims while simultaneously disparaging established media organizations as biased and unreliable.77 The net effect is to discredit any source of information that challenges one’s own version of events. If enough people genuinely believe “The New York Times is fake news,” as former congressman Newt Gingrich said in 2016, then all sources of information become equally valid and a key pillar of democracy is effectively neutered.
”
”
Stephen M. Walt (The Hell of Good Intentions: America's Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy)
“
Isabelle was supposed to say something to Jean-Claude, to acknowledge him in a princessly way, but her mouth was dry and her voice didn't want to work. What if her father was listening in through Marie? Isabelle had cost Marie her humanity with one ill-chosen word. How much more damage might she cause with another?
After a difficult moment, Isabelle muttered, "Musketeer," which wasn't so much a greeting as an unsupported noun.
”
”
Curtis Craddock (An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors (The Risen Kingdoms, #1))
“
As social animals, we feel stress when we feel unsupported. That subconscious unease, the feeling that we are responsible for ourselves and no one else is there to help, the feeling we get that most of the people with whom we work care primarily about themselves, is, to our primitive brain, quite scary. And the problem is not with the people, it is with the environment.
”
”
Simon Sinek (Leaders Eat Last Deluxe: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't)
“
#3: TO FEEL SUPPORTED, SUPPORT YOURSELF. During my lectures and workshops I often hear people complain that they’re not feeling supported by others. They might be upset with their work colleagues, families, or friends, but whatever the circumstances, they’ve all slipped into victim mode by resenting others for their lack of support. Rather than commiserate with these folks, I flash the universal mirror at them and ask, “Are you supporting yourself?” Typically they respond with a weepy reply of “No, I’m not.” You see, the way we experience the world around us is a direct reflection of the world within us. If our thoughts and energy are not supportive, then our life won’t be supported. Therefore, we must take responsibility by consciously supporting ourselves in every given moment. Whenever you’re in a time of need and feel unsupported or alone, immediately ask yourself, “How can I support myself more?” Then take action. Simple right actions toward self-support can greatly change your attitude and experience. Say something kind to yourself, consciously think an empowering thought about yourself, or ask someone for help. We often think that people should be able to read our minds and simply “know” when we need support, but they can’t. The people in our lives have their own struggles and challenges, and they may not see ours, especially if we appear to be holding it together. Ultimately, asking for help is a radical act of self-support. One of the biggest ways we don’t support ourselves is by not asking for support. Asking can take courage, but the reward is immense. Not only will you receive the support you need, you’ll deepen your relationship with whomever you’re asking. These small right actions can greatly enhance your life in an instant. Making the simple shift from a powerless victim to a strong person who can care for yourself can change your life forever. Miracle Message #3: If I want to feel supported, I must support myself. #MiraclesNow
”
”
Gabrielle Bernstein (Miracles Now: 108 Life-Changing Tools for Less Stress, More Flow, and Finding Your True Purpose)