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1 " We try to fix the outside so much, but our control of the outer world is limited, temporary, and often, illusory. "
― Matthieu Ricard , Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill
2 " No one ever said that you would live to see the repercussions of everything you do, or that you have guarantees, or that you are not obliged to wander in the dark, or that everything will be proved to you and neatly verified like something in science. Nothing is: at least nothing that is worthwhile. I didn't bring you up only to move across sure ground. I didn't teach you to think that everything must be within our control or understanding. Did I? For, if I did, I was wrong. I fyou won't take a chance, then the powers you refuse because you cannot explain them, will, as they say, make a monkey out of you. "
― Mark Helprin , Winter's Tale
3 " My best advice about writer’s block is: the reason you’re having a hard time writing is because of a conflict between the GOAL of writing well and the FEAR of writing badly. By default, our instinct is to conquer the fear, but our feelings are much, much, less within our control than the goals we set, and since it’s the conflict BETWEEN the two forces blocking you, if you simply change your goal from “writing well” to “writing badly,” you will be a veritable fucking fountain of material, because guess what, man, we don’t like to admit it, because we’re raised to think lack of confidence is synonymous with paralysis, but, let’s just be honest with ourselves and each other: we can only hope to be good writers. We can only ever hope and wish that will ever happen, that’s a bird in the bush. The one in the hand is: we suck. We are terrified we suck, and that terror is oppressive and pervasive because we can VERY WELL see the possibility that we suck. We are well acquainted with it. We know how we suck like the backs of our shitty, untalented hands. We could write a fucking book on how bad a book would be if we just wrote one instead of sitting at a desk scratching our dumb heads trying to figure out how, by some miracle, the next thing we type is going to be brilliant. It isn’t going to be brilliant. You stink. Prove it. It will go faster. And then, after you write something incredibly shitty in about six hours, it’s no problem making it better in passes, because in addition to being absolutely untalented, you are also a mean, petty CRITIC. You know how you suck and you know how everything sucks and when you see something that sucks, you know exactly how to fix it, because you’re an asshole. So that is my advice about getting unblocked. Switch from team “I will one day write something good” to team “I have no choice but to write a piece of shit” and then take off your “bad writer” hat and replace it with a “petty critic” hat and go to town on that poor hack’s draft and that’s your second draft. Fifteen drafts later, or whenever someone paying you starts yelling at you, who knows, maybe the piece of shit will be good enough or maybe everyone in the world will turn out to be so hopelessly stupid that they think bad things are good and in any case, you get to spend so much less time at a keyboard and so much more at a bar where you really belong because medicine because childhood trauma because the Supreme Court didn’t make abortion an option until your unwanted ass was in its third trimester. Happy hunting and pecking! "
4 " Life & Death are beyond our control. We can’t control where, how, or when we are born & we can’t control where, how, or when we may die. Then why Worry about it. "
5 " In the mantra of shared hatred and placing the blame on Israel, our cowardice to face the barbarity of our heads of states was replaced with a divine purpose. Contemplating the manifestation of the eradication of hatred I often concluded, the entirety of the Middle East’s theocracies and dictatorships would be replaced by total anarchy. We would be left with nothing, as our brotherhood of hatred was the only bond known to us. Enculturated in the malarkey of that demagoguery, forces beyond our control and comprehension seem to deceive us into a less harmful and satisfactory logic as opposed to placing some blame on ourselves and thus, having to act to reverse that state of affairs. "
― , An Ishmael of Syria
6 " Then might I exemplify how an influence beyond our control lays its strong hand on every deed which we do, and weaves its consequences into an iron tissue of necessity. (Wakefield) "
― Nathaniel Hawthorne
7 " Our lives are a novel being written. We are its author. Every action we encounter and every person we meet has a role and a place in our ultimate story. It is in our control to decide the level of how, who and what impacts us and how large a role we decide to assign each. "
8 " It is not those events outside of our control which we should allow to define us. Instead, the definition of who we choose to be is dictated by how we deal with these outside events within ourselves. "
9 " We can't worry away our problems, but we can worry anxiety into our mind and body. Thought energy is powerful. It's not easy to do, but we serve our well-being best, when we face our struggles head on and accept difficulties that are beyond our control and trust that we can garner the support and strength we need to jump the hurdles. Life needn't feel like a walking on a tightrope of tension. True peace is the calm within the storm. "
― Jaeda DeWalt
10 " We think of ourselves as failures, rather than renounce our belief in the possibility of perfection. We hang on to the hope of eternal love by denying even its temporary validity. It´s less painful to think 'I'm shallow', 'She's self centred', 'We couldn't communicate', 'It was all just physical', than to accept the simple fact that love is a passing sensation, for reasons beyond our control and even beyond our personalities. But who can reassure himself with his own rationalizations? No argument can fill the void of a dead feeling -- that reminder of the ultimate void, our final inconstancy. We're untrue even to life. "
11 " The more power they have over your emotions, the less likely you’ll trust your own reality and the truth about the abuse you’re enduring. Knowing the manipulative tactics and how they work to erode your sense of self can arm you with the knowledge of what you’re facing and at the very least, develop a plan to retain control over your own life and away from toxic people. . . . Taking back our control and power . . . means seeking validating professional help for the abuse we’ve suffered, detaching from these people in our lives, learning more about the techniques of abusers, finding support networks, sharing our story to raise awareness, and finding appropriate healing modalities that can enable us to transcend and thrive after their abuse. "
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12 " Balance is not always obtainable in every situation, however, we have the option to surrender our control over the desired outcome and live more easily in the present moment . This will result in greater peace of mind. "
13 " Our reputations are so out of our control that it's laughable how much time and effort so many of us put into trying to " control" them. "
14 " To create something does not mean to see through to its depths; we do not drain our children to the dregs by begetting them, but set them loose in the world like wild dogs, beyond our control and often beyond our knowledge. "
― Graham Harman , Towards Speculative Realism: Essays and Lectures
15 " We may view it as our responsibility to control something that is not in fact within our control and yet fail to exercise the power and authority that we do have over our own behavior. Mothers cannot make children think, feel, or be a certain way, but we can be firm, consistent, and clear about what behavior we will and will not tolerate, and what the consequences are for misbehavior. We can also change our part in patterns that keep family members stuck. At the same time we are doomed to failure with any self-help venture if we view the problem as existing within ourselves—or within the child or the child’s father, for that matter. There is never one villain in family life, although it may appear that way on the surface. "
― Harriet Lerner , The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships
16 " Genome-based treatment, based on wider and cheaper availability of genome data, will provide new ways to customize the therapeutic protocol and enhance our control over diseases and medical treatment. "