Updating Someone Quotes

If you can't stop thinking about someone's update, that's called "status cling.

Maybe a friend is someone who wants your updates. Even if they're boring. Or sad. Or annoyingly cutesy. A friend says "Sign me up for your boring crap, yes indeed"--because he likes you anyways. He'll tolerate your junk

It amazes me that we are all on Twitter and Facebook. By "we" I mean adults. We're adults, right? But emotionally we're a culture of seven-year-olds. Have you ever had that moment when are you updating your status and you realize that every status update is just a variation on a single request: "Would someone please acknowledge me?

But it became clear very quickly that I'd underestimated how much I liked him. Not him, perhaps, but the fact that I had someone on the other end of an invisible line. Someone to update and get updates from, to inform of a comic discovery, to imagine while dancing in a lonely basement, and to return to, finally, when the music stopped.

We don’t need accountability groups; we need fellow warriors, someone to fight alongside, someone to watch our back.

The Internet was born into a world where many people had already lost their sense of connection to each other. The collapse had already been taking place for decades by then. The web arrived offering them a kind of parody of what they were losing—Facebook friends in place of neighbors, video games in place of meaningful work, status updates in place of status in the world. The comedian Marc Maron once wrote that “every status update is a just a variation on a single request: ‘Would someone please acknowledge me?

People walk the paths of the gardens below, and the wind sings anthems in the hedges, and the big old cedars at the entrance to the maze creak. Marie-Laure imagines the electromagnetic waves traveling into and out of Michel’s machine, bending around them, just as Etienne used to describe, except now a thousand times more crisscross the air than when he lived - maybe a million times more. Torrents of text conversations, tides of cell conversations, of televisions programs, of e-mails, vast networks of fiber and wire interlaced above and beneath the city, passing through buildings, arcing between transmitters in Metro tunnels, between antennas atop buildings, from lampposts with cellular transmitters in them, commercials for Carrefour and Evian and prebaked toaster pastries flashing into space and back to earth again, I am going to be late and Maybe we should get reservations? and Pick up avocados and What did he say? and ten thousand I miss yous, fifty thousand I love yous, hate mail and appointment reminders and market updates, jewelry ads, coffee ads, furniture ads flying invisibly over the warrens of Paris, over the battlefields and tombs, over the Ardennes, over the Rhine, over Belgium and Denmark, over the scarred and ever-shifting landscape we call nations. And is it so hard to believe that souls might also travel those paths? That her father and Etienne and Madame Manec and the German boy named Werner Pfennig might harry the sky in flocks, like egrets, like terns, like starlings? That great shuttles of souls might fly about, faded but audible if you listen closely enough? They flow above the chimneys, ride the sidewalks, slip through your jacket and shirt and breastbone and lungs, and pass out through the other side, the air a library and the record of every life lived, every sentence spoken, every word transmitted still reverberating within it. Every hour, she thinks, someone for whom the war was memory falls out of the world. We rise again in the grass. In the flowers. In songs.

One of the surprising things about adulthood is how few people accompany you there and what a relief it is to occasionally talk to someone who knew the child-you and the teenaged-you; someone who has seen all versions, every update, and stuck with you through all of it.

Noel: A lot of people see friends as something you have on Twitter or Facebook or wherever. If someone wants to read your updates and you want to read their updates, then you’re friends. You don’t ever have to see each other. But that seems like a stupid definition to me. Roo: Yeah. Noel: Although on the other hand, rethink. Maybe a friend is someone who wants your updates. Even if they’re boring. Or sad. Or annoyingly cutesy. A friend says, “Sign me up for your boring crap, yes indeed” – because he likes you anyway. He’ll tolerate your junk. Roo: You have lots of friends. Noel: No, I don’t. Roo: You do. You know everyone at school. You get invited to parties. Noel: I get invited to parties, yeah. And I know people. But I don’t want their updates. Roo: Oh. Noel: And I sincerely doubt they want mine. Roo: I want your updates. Noel: I want your updates. (He looks down, bashfully.) I do. I want all your updates, Ruby.

Whether we coach, advise, counsel, facilitate, or mentor, the effectiveness of what we do depends in large measure on our beliefs about human potential. The expressions “to get the best out of someone” and “your hidden potential” imply that more lies within the person waiting to be released.

Agee wrote “like someone who had not just viewed the movie but been in it — out with it, as if it were a girl; drinking with it; driving in the night with it.

Honestly I’m glad. Cases where stupid people do stupid things are really more my forte. Like this guy.” He picked up a folder from the mess on his desk. “He updated his Facebook account from inside a house he was robbing. Classic Cliff McCormack material. I’ll leave the murderers to someone who knows what he’s doing.

What many people see as a three-hundred-page book is often the accumulation of thousands of hours and decades of work. Where else can you get the entire life’s work of someone in the space of a few hours?

Okay, so I stopped posting status updates on Facebook a long time ago. I noticed that whenever someone posts something completely mundane and stupid, like 'Sushi 2nite!' seventeen people have to comment on that. 'I ♥ sushi!' and 'Spicy Tuna 4 meee!' But if you ever try to actually say something serious about your feelings or, like, your life, every one of your 386 "friends" is suddenly mute. So there you have it: My life is a post with no comments. Less interesting than spicy tuna.

akeru. It means “to pierce, to open, to end, to make a hole in, to start, to expire, to unwrap, to turn over.” When someone leaves, akeru refers to the empty space that is created, the opening in which a new beginning can take place. I was amazed at the power of a single word that could suggest that to begin and to end are the same—part of one never-ending cycle of renewal and healing. I

one of the worst things is when witnesses start talking to each other. As soon as you start talking to someone else, the story you have in your head changes. Human memory is rewritten like computer memory. You just get the most updated file.

My definition of marketing is: “getting someone who has a need, to know, like, and trust you.

Love is not a nebulous idea. It's not a vague notion of warm and fuzzy. Its the real daily interactions of sharing our lives with someone, caring for them, and having them care for us in return. Love is what we do, day in day out, not what we profess in our status updates.

Enthu cutlet is a typical Bangalore word and refers to someone who gets over-excited about a variety of things like landing up at a restaurant before anyone else, making party plans on every occasion or even otherwise and putting up a status update on Facebook every two hours.

What roles do you want to play? Consider, for example the roles of: team builder; manager; individual contributor; change agent; technical expert; relationship builder; trouble shooter; someone who makes things happen; consolidator; problem solver; conceptualizer; big picture thinker; marketer; decision-maker; talent spotter/nurturer; mentor; turnaround artist; mediator.

As for human contact, I'd lost all appetite for it. Mankind has, as you may have noticed, become very inventive about devising new ways for people to avoid talking to each other and I'd been taking full advantage of the most recent ones. I would always send a text message rather than speak to someone on the phone. Rather than meeting with any of my friends, I would post cheerful, ironically worded status updates on Facebook, to show them all what a busy life I was leading. And presumably people had been enjoying them, because I'd got more than seventy friends on Facebook now, most of them complete strangers. But actual, face-to-face, let's-meet-for-a-coffee-and-catch-up sort of contact? I seemed to have forgotten what that was all about.

I didn’t say anything on social media, though relatives tried to tag me in supportive status updates, which I did my best to untag myself from. I didn’t want to be a part of their mourning. I didn’t want to be involved in someone else’s grief when I knew so little about how to deal with my own.

Just be yourself” sounds like good advice at first, but what if you’re a jerk? What if you’re a serial killer? Maybe you should be someone else. “Believe in yourself” is fine, but “anything is possible”? No, it’s not. Expressing yourself, respecting yourself, and being honest with yourself are somewhat tautological but not usually directly harmful. But “you have to love yourself first” has a crucial flaw: people who really love themselves are called narcissists, and they make horrible relationship partners.

Maturity in life is when someone is living joyfully within their God-given limits.

22The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful

Sometimes, it may seem like you are being too friendly or that you are too concerned about someone else.

In order to have a life worth living, you need to be you. Not the parental- or friend- or boy-dictated version. Not the Internet-updated version. But the true version. You are you. You actually can’t be anyone else. God made you you on purpose. You are the only one alive who ever was or ever will be you. “Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!” said the brilliant Dr. Seuss.1 You is not only who you get to be; it’s who you are supposed to be. Problems come when we would rather be someone else. Anyone else. Sometimes others don’t like us. Sometimes we don’t like ourselves. We know where we are struggling or failing or hurting or simply wanting out. We know we are not all that we are meant to be. So here’s the good news. You are meant to be you, but you are meant to become a better you. You are meant to change and grow in the ways you long to. That is, in fact, why you long to. The very fact that we long for the change we do is a sign that we are meant to have it. Our very dissatisfaction with our weaknesses and struggles points to the reality that continuing to live in them is not our destiny.

The braggadocio aspect is important: a successful but modest man is ordinarily not called a k’nocker. A k’nocker is someone who works crossword puzzles—with a pen (especially if someone is watching).

But these—they weren’t case updates so much as letters, the kind you wrote to someone you knew so well you could imagine them beside you, even when they were across an ocean, living out another life.

Interior turmoil arises when we realize that we may have hurt, degraded, or frightened someone with our many outbursts. We’ll feel some sense of release with the expression of our strong emotions, but we’ll be disappointed about our poor relating skills or ashamed about our lack of control. Expressing strong emotions at others can damage our ego structure and our sense of self-esteem. Then, our lowered self-esteem tends to make us less able to manage our emotions properly the next time, and we tend to slide into an almost uncontrollable habit of flinging our strong emotions all over the place. We become trapped in a cycle of attacks and retreats, enmeshment and isolation, and explosions and apologies. Our internal checks and balances seem to get broken, and we become emotionally volatile.

Che got me to think about Update in a different way. He taught me that if you try to do something you love and something someone else wants you to do, the both suffer, and the thing you love might disappear entirely.

It really is a helluva fiver-upper," Henry said, because someone had to say it. "I feel like they should possibly renovate this basement if they want to get a good sale price. Hardwood floors, update the doorknobs, maybe put the wall back.

But, by the end of four dark days, we had logged eleven northerly miles. This would not sound very impressive except to someone who has also pulled a load in excess of his own bodyweight over pressure rubble in the dark and at a temperature of –40°C.

For someone with ADHD, even the simplest task takes much more energy than it takes for others. To shower, get dressed, and get out the door in the morning can require the kind of care and concentration that average people expend over their entire day.

When someone leaves, akeru refers to the empty space that is created, the opening in which a new beginning can take place. I was amazed at the power of a single word that could suggest that to begin and to end are the same—part of one never-ending cycle of renewal and healing.

Jane Russell! My physical therapist had never heard of her. “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” I said. “Not in my experience,” she replied. Bina’s younger; perhaps that’s it. All this was earlier today; before I could argue with her, she laced one of my legs over the other, capsized me onto my right side. The pain left me breathless. “Your hamstrings need this,” she assured me. “You bitch,” I gasped. She pressed my knee to the floor. “You’re not paying me to go easy on you.” I winced. “Can I pay you to leave?” Bina visits once a week to help me hate life, as I like to say, and to provide updates on her sexual adventures, which are about as exciting as my own. Only in Bina’s case it’s because she’s picky. “Half the guys on these apps are using five-year-old photos,” she’ll complain, her waterfall of hair poured over one shoulder, “and the other half are married. And the other half are single for a reason.” That’s three halves, but you don’t debate math with someone who’s rotating your spine.

Keeping a commitment or a promise is a major deposit; breaking one is a major withdrawal. In fact, there’s probably not a more massive withdrawal than to make a promise that’s important to someone and then not to come through. The next time a promise is made, they won’t believe it. People tend to build their hopes around promises, particularly promises about their basic livelihood.

akeru. It means “to pierce, to open, to end, to make a hole in, to start, to expire, to unwrap, to turn over.” When someone leaves, akeru refers to the empty space that is created, the opening in which a new beginning can take place. I was amazed at the power of a single word that could suggest that to begin and to end are the same—part of one never-ending cycle of renewal and healing.

If someone close to us dies, then, based on what we know about object-trace cells, our neurons still fire every time we expect our loved one to be in the room. And this neural trace persists until we can learn that our loved one is never going to be in our physical world again. We must update our virtual maps, creating a revised cartography of our new lives. Is it any wonder that it takes many weeks and months of grief and new experiences to learn our way around again?

SUPPOSE YOU WERE TO COME UPON SOMEONE in the woods working feverishly to saw down a tree. “What are you doing?” you ask. “Can’t you see?” comes the impatient reply. “I’m sawing down this tree.” “You look exhausted!” you exclaim. “How long have you been at it?” “Over five hours,” he returns, “and I’m beat! This is hard work.” “Well, why don’t you take a break for a few minutes and sharpen that saw?” you inquire. “I’m sure it would go a lot faster.” “I don’t have time to sharpen the saw,” the man says emphatically. “I’m too busy sawing!

Torrents of text conversations, tides of cell conversations, of television programs, of e-mail, vast networks of fiber and wire interlaced above and beneath the city, passing through buildings, arcing between transmitters in Metro tunnels, between antennas atop buildings, from lampposts with cellular transmitters in them, commercials for Carrefour and Evian and prebaked toaster pastries flashing into space and back to earth again, I’m going to be late and Maybe we should get reservations? and Pick up avocados and What did he say? and ten thousand I miss yous, fifty thousand I love yous, hate mail and appointment reminders and market updates, jewelry ads, coffee ads, furniture ads flying invisibly over the warrens of Paris, over the battlefields and tombs, over the Ardennes, over the Rhine, over Belgium and Denmark, over the scarred and ever-shifting landscapes we call nations. And is it so hard to believe that souls might also travel those paths? That her father and Etienne and Madame Manec and the German boy named Werner Pfennig might harry the sky in flocks, like egrets, like terns, like starlings? That great shuttles of souls might fly about, faded but audible if you listen closely enough? They flow above the chimneys, ride the sidewalks, slip through your jacket and shirt and breastbone and lungs, and pass out through the other side, the air a library and the record of every life lived, every sentence spoken, every word transmitted still reverberating within it. Every hour, she thinks, someone for whom the war was memory falls out of the world. We rise again in the grass. In the flowers. In songs.

SUPERSIZE IT—Try sizing someone’s job the way you shop for shoes for a young child. How does the wise parent decide what size to buy? They start by measuring the child’s foot, and then they buy a pair that’s a size too big. And how does the parent respond when their child tries on those shoes, awkwardly parading down the store aisle, complaining that the shoes feel weird and too big and that their feet are flopping around in them? The parent reassures them, “Don’t worry, you’ll grow into them.” Try supersizing someone’s job. Assess their current capabilities and then give them a challenge that is a size too big. Give an individual contributor a leadership role; give a first-line manager more decision-making power. If they seem startled, acknowledge that the role or responsibility might feel awkward at first. Then step back and watch them grow into it.

How to own a smartphone and still be a functioning human being Don’t feel you always have to be there. In the not-so-olden days of letters and landlines, contacting someone was slow and unreliable and an effort. In the age of WhatsApp and Messenger it’s free and easy and instant. The flipside of this ease is that we are expected to be there. To pick up the phone. To get back to the text. To answer the email. To update our social media. But we can choose not to feel that obligation. We can sometimes just let them wait. We can risk our social media getting stale. And if our friends are friends they will understand when we need some headspace. And if they aren’t friends, why bother getting back anyway? Turn off notifications. This is essential. This keeps me (just about) sane. All of them. All notifications. You don’t need any of them. Take back control.

Studies say that it takes six to eight meetings to feel like someone is our friend. When was the last time you saw someone new who you didn’t work with six to eight times in a year? Unless you’re dating, on a sports team together or flatmates, the answer is never. By this definition, my best friend is the route 19 bus driver. Other research says that, on average, it takes fifty hours of time with someone before you consider them a casual friend and ninety hours before you feel comfortable updating them to a ‘friend’. Fifty hours? I’m not so sure. Add a little light trauma, and you can get there ten times as fast. At journalism school, I was paired with a classmate to work on a TV report. You can bet that a few hours of sobbing in the editing suite brought us together like nobody’s business. Same goes for surviving turbulent plane rides, sadistic teachers and punishingly long jazz concerts. If you make it out alive, you are usually bonded for life. Personally, I think meeting someone you really connect with twice, for a few hours, followed by extensive, emotional texting, is enough to feel like friends. And I think I’m on my way with Abigail.

There is another Christian theme with roots around the world: Christ’s death on the cross.  Christians would like to believe this story is unique, but evidence shows that in many details, Jesus Christ’s story is an updated version of the story of Krishna, Mithras, Horus, Quetzalcoatl, Dionysus, and many other sun-gods.  Many are born to a virgin around the winter solstice, their birth heralded in advance by a star.  Many had someone with a name like Herod or Herut out to kill them as a baby.  Many were baptized in water by someone who was later beheaded.  Many were tempted in the desert by Set or Satan, had twelve disciples and a last supper, cured blindness and leprosy, brought the dead back to life, and had titles like “King of Kings,” “Lord of Lords,” “Redeemer,” “Savior,” “Anointed One,” and “Son of God.”  (If interested in all the details, read Kersey Graves’ The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors or Suns of God by Achyra S.)   Various sun gods have died, descended into hell or the underworld, and were resurrected three days after being sacrificed to save humanity through a very temporary death on a cross, or the crossing of the four roads, or the crossing point of the Milky Way and the ecliptic.  This is the time and place at which they ascend to their father, the highest god, and receive great power and kingship over the earth.

I thought you might stop by today,” he said with a brittle cheerfulness. “So I already checked the ledger. You’re not in the lists yet. You’ll have to stick with Tomes or come back later, after they’ve updated the books.” “No offense, but would you mind checking again? I’m not sure I can trust the literacy of someone who tries to rhyme ‘north’ with ‘worth.’ No wonder you have to hold women down to get them to listen to it.” Ambrose stiffened and his arm slid off the back of the chair to fall at his side. His expression was pure venom. “When you’re older, E’lir, you’ll understand that what a man and a woman do together—” “What? In the privacy of the entrance hall of the Archives?” I gestured around us. “God’s body, this isn’t some brothel. And, in case you hadn’t noticed, she’s a student, not some brass nail you’ve paid to bang away at. If you’re going to force yourself on a woman, have the decency to do it in an alleyway. At least that way she’ll feel justified screaming about it.” Ambrose’s face flushed furiously and it took him a long moment to find his voice. “You don’t know the first thing about women.” “There, at least, we can agree,” I said easily. “In fact, that’s the reason I came here today. I wanted to do some research. Find a book or two on the subject.” I struck the ledger with two fingers, hard. “So look up my name and let me in.

It's funny, you know. We're free. We make choices. We weigh things in our minds, consider everything carefully, use all the tools of logic and education. And in the end, what we mostly do is what we have no choice but to do. Makes you think, why bother? But you bother because you do, that's why. Because you're a DNA-brand computer running Childhood 1.0 software. They update the software but the changes are always just around the edges. You have the brain you have, the intelligence, the talents, the strengths and weaknesses you have, from the moment they take you out of the box and throw away the Styrofoam padding. But you have the fears you picked up along the way. The terrors of age four or six or eight are never suspended, just layered over. The dread I'd felt so recently, a dread that should be so much greater because the facts had been so much more horrible, still could not diminish the impact of memories that had been laid down long years before. It's that way all through life, I guess. I have a relative who says she still gets depressed every September because in the back of her mind it's time for school to start again. She's my great-aunt. The woman is sixty-seven and still bumming over the first day of school five-plus decades ago. It's sad in a way because the pleasures of life get old and dated fast. The teenage me doesn't get the jolt the six-year-old me got from a package of Pop Rocks. The me I've become doesn't rush at the memories of the day I skated down a parking ramp however many years ago. Pleasure fades, gets old, gets thrown out with last year's fad. Fear, guilt, all that stuff stays fresh. Maybe that's why people get so enraged when someone does something to a kid. Hurt a kid and he hurts forever. Maybe an adult can shake it off. Maybe. But with a kid, you hurt them and it turns them, shapes them, becomes part of the deep, underlying software of their lives. No delete. I don't know. I don't know much. I feel like I know less all the time. Rate I'm going, by the time I'm twenty-one I won't know a damned thing. But still I was me. Had no choice, I guess. I don't know, maybe that's bull and I was just feeling sorry for myself. But, bottom line, I dried my eyes, and I pushed my dirty, greasy hair back off my face, and I started off down the road again because whatever I was, whoever I was, however messed up I might be, I wasn't leaving April behind. Maybe it was all an act programmed into me from the get-go, or maybe it grew up out of some deep-buried fear, I mean maybe at some level I was really just as pathetic as Senna thought I was. Maybe I was a fake. Whatever. Didn't matter. I was going back to the damned dragon, and then I was getting April out, and everything and everyone else could go screw themselves. One good thing: For now at least, I was done being scared.

flicker?" He points to the screen and pauses the vid. "That's when they switched the footage." I stare at the screen. "How do I know you're not the ones lying?" "You saw it yourself on the street," Meyer says. I glance up from the pad and lock eyes with Meyer. "What else are they lying about?" Jayson chuckles. "Well… that's going to take longer than we have." "Here's one," Meyer says. "Remember that last viral outbreak that killed a bunch of Level Ones?" "3005B?" My heart races. That's the virus that ultimately killed Ben thirteen years ago. "That's it. The one they use in all the broadcasts to remind citizens how important it is to get your MedVac updates? It wasn't an accident." We were always told a virus swept through Level One because they hadn't gotten their updated VacTech yet. Hundreds of people died in the day it took to get everyone up to date. "My brother died because of that." Everything I've found out over the last week suddenly grips me with fear. This can't be real. My breath shortens, and suddenly my head starts slowly spinning. Everything goes blurry. Then black. ~~~ "It's all right, kid," a distant voice, which must be Jayson's, echoes in the back of my mind. The room swirls around me. Their faces blur in and out of focus. "Meyer, get her." Blinking a couple of times, I try to sit up. I guess I fell. Meyer's warm hands rest on the back of my neck, my head in his lap. "Don't stand. You could pass out again," he says. He helps me sit up. "Are you okay?" "No, I'm not okay," I mumble. "This is too much." I feel like I should be crying, but I'm not. The reality is that the anger I feel is so much greater than any sadness. Neither Meyer nor Jayson speak, and let me mull over what I've just heard. "Why did they do that?" I eventually ask. "Two reasons, kid," Jayson says. "To cull the Level Ones, and to scare Elore into taking the VacTech. If viral outbreaks are still a threat, no one questions it, and continues believing inside the perimeter is the safest place for them." "I'm sorry about your brother," Meyer says as he stands, offering me his hand. His words are genuine, filled with the emotions of someone who has also experienced loss. "I hate to end this," Jayson interrupts, "but it's time to go." Meyer eyes Jayson, and then me. "I understand if you're not ready, but you need to choose soon. Within the next few days." I take his hand and pull myself to my feet. Words catch somewhere between my heart and throat. The old me wants to tell them to get lost and to never bother me again. It's so risky. Then again, I can't stand by while Manning and Direction kill people to keep us in the dark. Joining is the right thing to do. Feelings I've never experienced before well inside my chest, and I long to shout, When do we start? Instead, I stuff them down and stare at the ground. Subtle pressure squeezes my hand, bringing me back to the present. I never let go of Meyer's hand. How long have we been like that? He releases my hand as he mutters and steps back. The heat from his touch still flickers on my skin. You didn't have to go. I clear my throat and turn toward Meyer. Our eyes lock. "I've already decided," I tell him. "I'll do it. For Ben. Direction caused his death, and there's no way I'm standing by and letting them do this to more people." I barely recognize my own voice as I ask, "What do I do?" A slap hits my back and I choke. Jayson. "Atta girl. Meyer and I knew you had it in you." "Jayson, you have to give Avlyn some time." Meyer steps toward me and holds his handheld in the air toward Jayson. "I'll bring her up to speed." "Sure thing." Jayson throws his hands in the air and walks to the other side of the room. "Sorry," Meyer murmurs. "Jayson is pretty… overwhelming. At least until you know him. Even then…" "Oh, it's fine." A white lie. "He's a nice guy. Now, why don't you tell me the instructions

Julie Seagle If you can’t stop thinking about someone’s update, that’s called “status cling.

The comedian Marc Maron once wrote that “every status update is a just a variation on a single request: ‘Would someone please acknowledge me?

Although it will often take someone with ADHD longer to establish a routine (and they will never stick to it slavishly), the complete absence of a routine will ambush organization in an ADHD home as thoroughly as it would in any home. We all need daily routines—looking at your calendar and to-do list first every morning, cleaning the kitchen after dinner every night, etc.—to keep us on track, as well as weekly routines—Laundry Day Saturday, Office Day Wednesday—to ground us in our week.

If you’ve been thanked and know your gift has arrived, you must never again inquire about it. Do not tell the recipient to give it back to you if she can’t use it. You gave it away, so you are not allowed to control its fate anymore; now someone else gets to decide what happens with it. Realistically, there will be some number of gifts for which the sentiment is greatly appreciated, but the object is not to the receiver’s taste; it’s unfair to put someone on the spot by making them confess that she doesn’t like your taste, especially when she is in debt to you for a generous impulse.

Why not? You’ve already interrupted my work.” “Sorry about that, but here’s the deal. I want to talk to the players in the case, but I have no cover story and no bargaining power. I can hardly pass myself off as a reporter.” “Sure you can,” she said. “People are more interested in talking than you’d think. I see it all the time when I’m trolling for interviews. Here’s the trick. Imply you have the information and you’re looking for confirmation. Better yet, tell ’em you’d like to hear their version of events before you go to press. Say your editor wants an update and he suggested you talk to them.” “I wouldn’t need press credentials?” “Only if you’re crashing a rock concert. People assume you’re who you say you are.” “What about Sloan’s mother? Do you think she’d agree to meet with me?” “God, you sound so tentative. I thought you had balls. Trust me, she’ll talk. All she does is talk about Sloan’s death. People who know her say she’s obsessed. For years now, she’s left Sloan’s room as it was. Closed the door and locked it.” “Someone else mentioned that,” I said. “Sounds like she’s still sensitive about the

Of course, problems come in threes, or at least twos. Rarely onesies. Major Truman Preston could hear the First Family screaming at each other and could care less. What worried him was that the White House was in lockdown, the president seemed a bit off his rocker, and he couldn’t get an outside line on his Department of Defense–issue cell phone. He needed to check in with his supervisor at the Pentagon, but neither cell nor landlines were working. So he sat on the second floor of the Residence, tucked away in a corner, a position he was more than used to, and held the football on his lap. Forty-five pounds of deadweight, with the emphasis on the dead. The surface of the case was dinged and battered and bruised from years of traveling. The damn case was older than he was. You’d think someone would have made the decision to swap the old thing out for a new case. Although the interior was updated with the latest electronics, never the outside. Tradition mattered, even in apparently trivial ways. Despite the turmoil raging and the lack of communication, Preston was his usual calm self

That constant search for a hit of dopamine (“Someone liked my status update!”) reduces creativity.

It’s a lot easier to find fault with someone else than to find the courage to face our own fears and faults.

A demanding boss is not a micromanager. Asking for reports is not micromanaging. Expecting updates is not micromanaging. Asking for one meeting a week is not micromanaging someone. Spending time communicating about tasks, deliverables, deadlines, successes, failures, growth opportunities, and, yes, even family—is not micromanaging in any way. So,

Goals update:  Don’t get arrested  Don’t make a fool out of myself in public--FAILED  Get my picture taken at the colosseum  Find random souvenir for Morgan  Get a makeover  See Pompeii  Swim in the Mediterranean Sea  Have a conversation with someone in only Italian--FAILED  Eat a whole pizza in one sitting  Fall in love with an Italian--FAILED

I have a few things I need to talk to you about today, honey,” she says. “First, I want an update on this guy you met.” I’ve made a point to keep it vague with her. She knows that I’m crushing on someone, but not that I went on a little trip with him. Or that he hasn’t been back to see me since. “I don’t know, Gram.” I sigh into the phone. “I don’t think he’s interested in me like that.” “Impossible!” “I mean, I thought so, maybe. But I haven’t seen him in, like, a week. I think I might need to just forget about it. I’m coming home soon anyway, right?” “Well, that’s very logical of you,” she says. “All I can say is follow your heart, honey. Sometimes it’s best to ignore your head.” “I think I’m the one being ignored, Gram.” “Your Papa used to say that whatever happens is the way it was always going to happen, so live your life. Regret nothing.

Goals update:  Don’t get arrested  Don’t make a fool out of myself in public--FAILED  Get my picture taken at the colosseum  Find random souvenir for Morgan  Get a makeover  See Pompeii  Swim in the Mediterranean Sea  Have a conversation with someone in only Italian--FAILED  Eat a whole pizza in one sitting  Fall in love with an Italian--FAILED

These educational superpowers proved potent tools for political purposes, creating online “persuasion sequences” of videos where insights from each one would both update someone’s views and motivate them to watch another video about a related topic where they were likely to be further convinced.

Rupture allows the part of a woman that she has outgrown to die and fall away. It updates the parts of us that feel helpless; like we need someone to do it for us. It forces us to take a seat firmly inside of our power. It is required for us to grow.

7. Saying yes too much Most people are afraid to say no. Maybe you don’t want to let people down. Maybe you are uncomfortable with the word no. I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. What matters is this: If you keep saying yes, you’re living someone else’s life. Think about it. Deep down, we all know that’s true. We’re not even in control of our own time. Want to take full control of your life? Say no to a million things and yes to a few things that matter.

Count down starts now and ends by April 2 2022, before April 2 2022, I will have decided which Institution, so after April 2 I need to prepare things to be done, like entrance preparation, loan arrangements if required, project proposal planning, Required skills updates, Further plans on biological research with SDGs that focuses on society benefits, acclimatization and extreme fitness for astronaut dream and etc. And April 2 is special day too, 10 years before April 2 2012, I made a wrong decision - Right decision on wrong time - 23 April 2 2011, I made a love proposal to one of my professors and got funny reactions from her, April 2 2010, someone knocked me out Just memories

I heard of someone who had been an earnest Christian and spoke about the “cruel” thought of separation and death. But you don’t think that, do you? What are we to think of separation and death? Death was the path to glory for Christ. For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross (Hebrews 12:2). The cross was the birthplace of His everlasting glory. Do you love Christ? Do you desire to be in Christ and not just like Him? Let death be to you the most desirable thing on earth: death to self for the sake of fellowship with Christ.

The thirty-day no-contact rule Recovering from a breakup on a more practical basis can be likened to getting over an addiction. You go through periods of major withdrawal where you become overwhelmed by a cocktail of emotions, including guilt, fear, randomly missing him, and suddenly feeling like what he did to you ‘wasn’t that bad’. You start to play the mental showreel of all your good times (even if you only had a few), and suddenly you can’t remember why you left. Feeling this cluster of imbalanced emotions can be very confusing and irritating, but all hope is not lost. Contrary to popular belief, breakups don’t actually have to be hard. We assign so much spiritual and emotional value to these men, that by the time we finally distance ourselves from them, we feel distant from ourselves. And that’s really heartbreaking, because no man is worth losing yourself over. Ever. They say it takes about thirty days to break a habit. Texting your ex, stalking his profile from your second account, deliberately asking your mutual friends certain questions to get updates on his life and his new girl – it all needs to stop. So right now, go cold turkey, block his number on whatever messaging app you use, remove him from all your social media. Maintaining little corridors of access to him means he’s still on a pedestal. It also means your value system when it comes to men is warped, because naturally you’re going to keep comparing new guys to him as long as he holds this much space in your head. You want to evict him from that space so that someone new can blow you away when the time is right! This guy is not the be-all and end-all of your experiences with men, and the outcome of your situation with him really doesn’t have to define your future relationships. This thirty-day period of making yourself the centre of your world has a 100 per cent success rate, because by the time you get to day thirty, if it’s done honestly and correctly, you will have either a) met a new guy or b) found a whole heap of new reasons to love your healing self. But the thirty-day no-contact rule must be adhered to strictly, and if you break the pact with yourself, you must start all the way from the beginning – which might feel like torture.

No matter how “important” or successful you are, no one is immune to the pleasure of someone taking interest in you as a person

Our neighborhood (made up of three hundred houses in the city of Durham, North Carolina) uses a social media app called Nextdoor. This is the only form of social media in which I participate. If I am going to post a picture of my lunch, I want to be able to share it with those with whom I might actually share this lunch—my neighbors. I read Nextdoor updates daily, and I receive messages as they are posted so that I can respond to and pray for the neighbors whom I do not yet know. I pray about lost dogs, and I donate school supplies. Every time someone posts a request for meals for a sick, grieving, or newly blessed-by-newborn neighbor, I’m on it. I look carefully at the food allergies and preferences. Over the years, I have developed go-to recipes for a variety of food needs. If the meal goes to a new mom, I include my favorite mom book, Gloria Furman’s Missional Motherhood.9 (And yes, I have read other books on motherhood—most of them, really, as I am somewhat obsessed with reading about motherhood, and this one is the very best.)

successful families don’t just happen. They take every bit of energy, talent, vision, determination, and rescue efforts a person can muster. They take prioritizing, planning, and sacrificing. They require family members to be willing to say, “I’m sorry,” and to do whatever is needed to make adjustments. Yes, in times of storm or calm, families need someone who is prepared to step up, not give up. Someone who is ready to lead.

Katherine hadn’t been in a wheelchair the day she’d boarded flight 672. I’d never been brave enough to ask for the specifics of her injuries, but they were extensive. In the early days of her emails, she’d updated us all from a hospital bed. Then a rehabilitation center. Recently, she’d sent photos of home renovations to accommodate her wheelchair. Her communications were always upbeat and filled with positivity, but it was times like that when I couldn’t imagine how she hadn’t become an erupting volcano of bitterness.

One big problem in postmodernism is that people can check books on Goodreads without having an account on Goodreads... This illusion of knowledge must be stopped before it destroys all forms of civilization! You can't have fun without a personal account. You can't even ask for someone else's account to check private updates, it's dangerous! We are on the brink of a dystopian catastrophe.

Love is not a nebulous idea. It’s not a vague notion of warm and fuzzies. It’s the real, daily interactions of sharing our lives with someone, caring for them, and having them care for us in return. Love is what we do, day in day out. Not what we profess in our status updates.

But the whole idea of reading as a pastime has somehow dropped off my life menu, and the time I used to spend in fictional worlds is now spent incessantly refreshing the news. I sometimes still try to kid myself into believing that this pointless consuming of current affair is important for my understanding of reality and even for my survival. But deep inside, I know that the momentous piece of news—the one that will supposedly pull me and the entire Middle East out of the deep pit we’ve fallen into—will never come, and all my endless refreshing and scrolling is just another stage in outsourcing my emotional world. After all, it’s a lot easier to wait for updates from a dismaying reality than to listen, feel, and submit to someone else’s imagination and hopes.

To someone who has seen a dozen people frown, scowl, or turn their faces away, your smile is like the sun breaking through the clouds.

My children used to occasionally ask me to proofread English papers for them.  The difficulty, for me, was in just proofreading.  I could see all kinds of ways they could make the paper better.  But I didn’t volunteer my ideas, because I was afraid that then they would lose the self-confidence and sense of accomplishment they had gotten from writing the paper.  Better to let their teacher make the suggestions, if she was so inclined, since kids expect English teachers to make suggestions.  You need to keep your long-term goals firmly in mind.  Children who are enthusiastic about working will, sooner or later, do much better work than kids who just grind out assignments because someone is standing over them.

Almost every conversation now includes someone updating you based on information he picked up from a Facebook or other social platform post.

jacket that gives you a little hug when someone likes your Facebook post; a paintbrush that samples any color or pattern you tap the brush on and turns it into digital paint; tables that listen, furniture that melts into the floor or into the wall when it’s not needed; lights that understand your activity and adjust their intensity and focus appropriately; watches that help students meet other people like them and prompt face-to-face conversation; E Ink Post-it notes that dynamically update to show place-based messages; a key fob that displays the traffic situation on your commute ahead.

Have you ever had that moment when you are updating your status and you realize that every status update is just a variation on a single request: “Would someone please acknowledge me?

Mr. Lefkowitz—sixty-five, a widower—was having a very lonely time in Miami Beach, and he observed a man of his age who was never without a companion; people forever streamed around him, extending invitations, swapping jokes. So Lefkowitz screwed up his courage, leaned over, and said to the popular paragon, “Mister, excuse me. What should I do to make friends?” “Get—a camel,” the other said with a sneer. “Ride up and down Collins Avenue every day, and before you know it, everyone in Miami will be asking, ‘Who is that man?’ and you’ll have to hire a social secretary to handle all the invitations! Don’t bother me again with such a foolish question.” So Mr. Lefkowitz bought a paper and looked through the ads, and by good fortune he read of a circus, stranded in Miami, that needed capital. Mr. Lefkowitz telephoned the circus owner and within half an hour had rented a camel. The next morning, Mr. Lefkowitz, wearing khaki shorts and a pith helmet, mounted his camel and set forth on Collins Avenue. Everywhere people stopped, buzzed, gawked, pointed. Every day for a week, Lefkowitz rode his trusty steed. One morning, just as he was about to get dressed, the telephone rang. “Mr. Lefkowitz! This is the parking lot! Your camel—it’s gone! Stolen!” At once, Mr. Lefkowitz phoned the police. A Sergeant O’Neill answered: “What? … It sounded as though you said someone had stolen your camel.” “That’s right!” “Er—I’ll fill out a form…. How tall was the animal?” “From the sidewalk to his back, where I sat, a good six feet.” “What color was it?” “What color?” echoed Lefkowitz. “Camel color: a regular, camel-colored camel!” “Male or female?” “Hanh?” “Was the animal male or female?” “How am I supposed to know about the sex of a camel?” Lefkowitz exclaimed. “Wait! Aha! It was a male!” “Are you sure?” “Absolutely.” “But Mr. Lefkowitz, a moment ago you—” “I’m positive, Officer, because I just remembered: Every time and every place I was riding on that camel, I could hear people yelling: ‘Hey! Look at the shmuck on that camel!

There’s a new virus out that can destroy his hard-drive if he gets it before I apply the update.”               “You better tell Dad about it. The tech at his work should be able to take care of it.” That’s the trouble with lying. It seems even a little white lie can grow faster than a vine and kill its host before you know it.               “Damn it!” Meg yelled. “I hope you guys like your eggs black because I can’t make any more. This is the last of the food unless someone comes

I also need an updated summary paper on Venus. The latest. And I don’t have time to get another PhD to read it, so if it’s not in clear, concise language, fire the sonofabitch and get someone who knows how to write.

He - and Cal - prefer a more generalized outlook on the End Times, recognizing it could come from anything: superstorms, polar shifts, invasion by the Chinese, attack by the U.S. government on its own people, aliens, EMP, God's wrath on a sin-filled world, killer bees. (Chance notes that no one mentions "Rogue AI with a penchant for Greek mythology." He figures someone should update their menu, because it is riding to number one on the charts with a bullet.)

The first time Halley set eyes on Howard was at a showing of The Towering Inferno. When she heard about him, her sister had wondered aloud how much of a future you could have with someone you’d met at a disaster movie. But at that point Halley wasn’t feeling picky. She had been in Dublin just over three weeks – not so long that she didn’t still get lost all the time on the infuriating streets that kept changing their names, but enough to disabuse her of most of her illusions about the place; enough too, with the deposit and first month’s rent for her new apartment, to separate her from most of the money she’d brought, and cut the time available for soul-searching and self-finding quite drastically. That afternoon she’d spent in an Internet café, reluctantly updating her résumé; she hadn’t had a conversation since the night before, a stilted exchange with the Chinese pizza delivery boy about his native Yunan province. When she spotted the poster for The Towering Inferno, which she and Zephyr must have watched twenty times together, it was like catching sight of an old friend. She went in and for three hours warmed herself in the familiar blaze of collapsing architecture and suffocating hotel guests; she stayed in her seat until the ushers started sweeping round her feet.

Finding someone’s native genius is a key that unlocks discretionary effort. It propels people to go beyond what is required and to offer their full intelligence.

A leader is someone who helps others lead.

What Musk had done that the rival automakers missed or didn’t have the means to combat was turn Tesla into a lifestyle. It did not just sell someone a car. It sold them an image, a feeling they were tapping into the future, a relationship. Apple did the same thing decades ago with the Mac and then again with the iPod and iPhone. Even those who were not religious about their affiliation to Apple were sucked into its universe once they bought the hardware and downloaded software like iTunes. This sort of relationship is hard to pull off if you don’t control as much of the lifestyle as possible. PC makers that farmed their software out to Microsoft, their chips to Intel, and their design to Asia could never make machines as beautiful and as complete as Apple’s. They also could not respond in time as Apple took this expertise to new areas and hooked people on its applications. You can see Musk’s embrace of the car as lifestyle in Tesla’s abandonment of model years. Tesla does not designate cars as being 2014s or 2015s, and it also doesn’t have “all the 2014s in stock must go, go, go and make room for the new cars” sales. It produces the best Model S it can at the time, and that’s what the customer receives. This means that Tesla does not develop and hold on to a bunch of new features over the course of the year and then unleash them in a new model all at once. It adds features one by one to the manufacturing line when they’re ready. Some customers may be frustrated to miss out on a feature here and there. Tesla, however, manages to deliver most of the upgrades as software updates that everyone gets, providing current Model S owners with pleasant surprises.

Leigh mentioned that you’re a vet in Winnipeg, here to take some courses to update your skills?” “Yes.” Valerie grimaced. “That was the idea, but if they don’t catch this guy in the next day or two, I’ll have to give up the courses until next semester and if that happens, I might as well head home.” “What?” Anders turned on her sharply. Valerie bit her lip, not very happy at the thought herself. She would have liked to get to know him better, but if she couldn’t do the course now, she’d have to do it next term and it wouldn’t be fair to be away from the clinic that long. Sighing at the very thought, she said, “That’s what my academic advisor said when I talked to him today. I’ve missed the first two weeks of class already. He said if I’m not back by Monday, then I might as well give it up and reapply for next term.” Anders frowned, his gaze shooting to Lucian. It was Leigh who said worriedly, “You can’t go home, Valerie. Not with him still out there.” “Actually, it’s probably better if I did,” Valerie said and pointed out, “He can’t know I’m from Winnipeg, so I’d be safe there, and Anders wouldn’t have to waste his time playing babysitter so he could help hunt for him.” Dead silence met this announcement as the others all exchanged glances. “But your courses,” Anders said finally. “You wanted to upgrade.” “And I still do, but I can’t do that if I can’t attend classes,” she pointed out reasonably. Another moment of silence passed with everyone exchanging glances she didn’t understand and then Lucian said abruptly, “Then you’ll have to attend classes.” When Valerie stared at him with surprise, he added, “Anders will accompany you.” “Oh.” She hesitated briefly and then shook her head. “I don’t think they’ll let him attend with me.” “They might,” Dani said slowly. “I’ve heard of people auditing classes. I even knew someone who audited a couple of mine. She had to get permission from the instructor, and the department chair, and I think her program counselor first though.” “Then he’ll get permission,” Lucian said as if it were the simplest thing in the world. When Anders frowned at this news, he added solemnly, “It’s that or we put her and Roxy on a plane home to Winnipeg.” For some reason, those words sounded ominous to Valerie, and certainly Anders reacted as if they were. His mouth tightened grimly, and he nodded once. It was Friday now, but apparently come Monday, she was attending class and Anders was coming with her.

In less than a decade, social media is one of those things that has become part of the fabric of society. It is also something about which everyone has an opinion. At some point in a dinner party, someone tends to malign social media for being full of updates about lunch or photos of pets. Life is full of froth. It is the mundane that makes us human. The seemingly inconsequential tidbits we share help us forge social bonds and bring us closer together.

Our first reaction to most of the statements (which we hear from other people) is an evaluation or judgment, rather than an understanding of it. When someone expresses some feeling, attitude or belief, our tendency is almost immediately to feel ‘that’s right,’ or ‘that’s stupid,’ ‘that’s abnormal,’ ‘that’s unreasonable,’ ‘that’s incorrect,’ ‘that’s not nice.’ Very rarely do we permit ourselves to understand precisely what the statement means to the other person.

Casebooks are now rarely adopted in freshman English courses; age and infirmity have taken their toll on my mental agilities; and, to be candid, I have been no less mystified by "Post-Colonialism" and "De-struction" and "Queer Chicana Studies" than have other academics trained in the once innovative principles of the New Criticism. I might have been a likelier candidate for studying someone else's updated Perplex than for compiling one myself!

Overdoses had now surpassed car accidents to become the leading cause of preventable death in America. In a midyear update to the Sacklers in June 2016, staffers told the family that, according to surveys, nearly half of all Americans knew someone who had been addicted to prescription opioids.

No matter how hard I tried, whether it was to help Anthony, to threaten him, to sympathize with him, to ignore him, to throw him out of my house, it was impossible to move on. This man was going to ruin me, and now he was going to jeopardize HRC's chances of winning the presidency, which would leave our country in the hands of someone dangerously unfit for the office. On the plane after the event, Jen came over to update HRC. The letter Comey had sent to Congress was out. It confirmed what the reporters had heard. The Comey investigation was officially reopened. It turned out that the Southern District, which was prosecuting Anthony's case involving the teenager, had found emails of mine on his laptop and to this day I do not know where or how because I never knew they were there. They called the FBI's New York office, who then called the DC office, which meant the laptop had ended up with Comey. They didn't alert Anthony's attorneys or mine. I watched HRC's face as she processed it. The moment she made eye contact with me, I just broke down. I had held it together for months—through the night of the shocking photo, all the meetings with Children's Services, the paparazzi on the street, becoming a single parent overnight, the daily hate messages, and even, until just a few minutes ago, the news about Comey's announcement to Congress. But now that I knew the investigation somehow involved my own email, tears flowed out of me. HRC stood up from her seat, came over to hug me, and then walked with me to the bathroom so I could compose myself. On a plane full of colleagues, Secret Service agents, reporters, photographers—everyone with eyes simultaneously averted and questioning—she did that.

Do you think there’s some loss aversion there? Because once you diverge, you’re not sure if you’re diverging toward a positive outcome or a negative outcome? Absolutely. I think that’s why the smartest and the most successful people I know started out as losers. If you view yourself as a loser, as someone who was cast out by society and has no role in normal society, then you will do your own thing and you’re much more likely to find a winning path. It helps to start out by saying, “I’m never going to be popular. I’m never going to be accepted. I’m already a loser. I’m not going to get what all the other kids have. I’ve just got to be happy being me.” For self-improvement without self-discipline, update your self-image. Everyone’s motivated at something. It just depends on the thing. Even the people that we say are unmotivated are suddenly really motivated when they’re playing video games. I think motivation is relative, so you just have to find the thing you’re into. [1] Grind and sweat, toil and bleed, face the abyss. It’s all part of becoming an overnight success.

You can’t be sexist or racist or classist if the only enemy is someone’s date of birth. Younger generations despise older generations for creating a world they must inhabit unwillingly, an impossible accusation to rebuff. Older generations despise new generations for multiple reasons, although most are assorted iterations of two: They perceive the updated versions of themselves as either softer or lazier (or both). These categorizations tend to be accurate. But that’s positive. That’s progress.

Inspired by the Scientific Revolution, [James] Ussher began to measure how much time was in the Bible, all the way back to “the beginning.” … Finally, in 1650, he came to a conclusion: Earth was formed on Sunday, October 23, 4004 B.C….around lunchtime. Modern science tells us that this number is wrong by approximately 4,499,994,000 years. But historians regard Ussher’s date as the first time that someone tried to calculate the age of Earth. This was the birth of geology. In 1703, the Church of England printed an updated version of the King James Bible, the most popular version of the Bible in the world, and included Ussher’s dates in the margins. From that point on, Christians thought Ussher’s numbers were as much a part of the Bible of the words themselves. The year 4004 B.C. became part of the religious education of every man, woman, and child in England.

Appoint an accountability partner—someone whom you report to regarding your chosen goals and keep updated with your progress in achieving them. An accountability partner sees to it that you are on track to fulfill your commitments. This offers you the hugely effective combo of positive support and praise when you retain self-discipline, along with social pressure and the risk of disappointing someone important to you when you don’t keep your commitments. The Hawthorne effect is a phenomenon in which people change their behavior to be more pleasing and positive when they know they are being observed. You can take advantage of this tendency to improve your own self-discipline by making your behavior more observable to others, thus giving you that extra push to do what you promised you would so that you impress others or at least don’t let them down. Seek out a role model or mentor whose qualities and behaviors you can emulate. As you get to know your role model better and observe their methods more closely, you become more inspired and informed as to how you can apply their strategies in building your own habits of self-discipline.

Every story requires a starting place that is not good enough and an ending place that is better. Nothing can be judged in the absence of that end place, that higher value. Without it, everything sinks into meaninglessness and boredom or degenerates and spirals into terror, anxiety, and pain. But, as time changes all things inexorably, every specific, value-predicated story may fail, in its particular incarnation and locale, and need replacement by something newer, more complete, but different. In consequence, the actor of a given story (and, therefore, someone deeply affiliated with the plot and the characterization) still must bow to the spirit of creative transformation that originally created and may need to destroy and re-create that story. It is for this reason that spirit eternally transcends dogma, truth transcends presupposition, Marduk transcends the elder gods, creativity updates society, and Christ transcends the law

Don’t worry about your schedule, your business, your family, or your friends. Just focus with me and really open your mind. In your mind’s eye, see yourself going to the funeral of a loved one. Picture yourself driving to the funeral parlor or chapel, parking the car, and getting out. As you walk inside the building, you notice the flowers, the soft organ music. You see the faces of friends and family you pass along the way. You feel the shared sorrow of losing, the joy of having known, that radiates from the hearts of the people there. As you walk down to the front of the room and look inside the casket, you suddenly come face-to-face with yourself. This is your funeral, three years from today. All these people have come to honor you, to express feelings of love and appreciation for your life. As you take a seat and wait for the services to begin, you look at the program in your hand. There are to be four speakers. The first is from your family, immediate and also extended—children, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents who have come from all over the country to attend. The second speaker is one of your friends, someone who can give a sense of what you were as a person. The third speaker is from your work or profession. And the fourth is from your church or some community organization where you’ve been involved in service. Now think deeply. What would you like each of these speakers to say about you and your life? What kind of husband, wife, father, or mother would you like their words to reflect? What kind of son or daughter or cousin? What kind of friend? What kind of working associate? What character would you like them to have seen in you? What contributions, what achievements would you want them to remember? Look carefully at the people around you. What difference would you like to have made in their lives? Before you read further, take a few minutes to jot down your impressions. It will greatly increase your personal understanding of Habit 2.

Automatic thoughts occur because the subconscious mind stores information that is meant to protect you. However, it also stores negative associations better than positive ones because it acts as a safety mechanism. Although this is effective from an evolutionary standpoint, it unfortunately perpetuates a lot of anxious and hopeless thoughts. Also keep in mind that since the subconscious mind is programmed through repetition and emotion, the more we perpetuate beliefs, the more deeply ingrained they become over time. So, how do we identify automatic thoughts and the core triggers that created them? Well, the brain is always looking for information to support what it believes. This is called supportive evidence. Supportive evidence is the information that the brain picks out of its environment to reinforce its existing thoughts. In the context of reprogramming your subconscious, this is a negative practice. An example of this may occur if Connor were to go to a work party—remember that he believes that he is fundamentally unworthy of emotional connection. When he walks in, his automatic thoughts include “No one likes me, and no one wants me here.” The brain then begins to look for supportive evidence: Someone frowning in conversation while looking in his direction, to Connor, means that they hate him and want him to leave. With Suneel, supportive evidence may occur when Suneel makes grammatical corrections in the project they’re working on together. To Connor, this may again reinforce that Suneel is trying to undermine him. A powerful aspect of supportive evidence to consider is that it occurs every day and everywhere in our lives. Our mind is constantly looking for supportive evidence of what our subconscious believes. When the subconscious stores fundamentally painful beliefs, they become projected onto our reality everywhere we look. Therefore, it is essential to begin looking for contradictory evidence for our core wounds to reprogram our subconscious and heal our everyday perspectives. Contradictory evidence is information that disproves existing beliefs. Since memory is colored by emotion, finding contradictory evidence in our past and present and pairing it with the emotions associated with that experience allows us to begin reprogramming our subconscious. Essentially, finding proof of the opposite helps to equilibrate our subconscious, and from there, it can be taught new and updated beliefs.

This will give us the necessary tools, in the form of ideas or concepts, to enter, in later chapters, the world of other high-risk systems that someone has decided we cannot live without.