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" We often want quick answers, quick results, instant rewards, and that’s normal in our high tech, instant, Google driven world.
To take that first step towards reaching a goal or realizing a dream, knowing that there will perhaps be a thousand more steps to follow in order to make it happen, can be daunting.
It’s simple and yet complicated. The simple part of achieving success is that it just takes work. For me, staying focused on my goals and envisioning my dreams every day, makes the work flow almost on its own.
The hard part is the mindset, and to not self sabotage, because you don’t believe in yourself. We often think we can’t achieve our wildest dreams or that we are somehow incapable, and then we never, ever take that first step.
I never felt that I was a very confident person, but with the support of some wonderful people and my own inner fire, I kept going. The hardest part after working and working, was to actually accept that I deserved success.
Success in itself is kind of scary too, as it comes with having to be responsible, and not flake out. The people who have supported you and invested in you deserve that.
I guess what I am trying to say is that if you want something, you have to take action. A little step towards it every day. Then there is a reason to feel accomplished every day. Match your energy and vibration with what you envision. Believe. You deserve success, so go for it. "
―
67
" And indeed we must seek the true rule of prayer in the word of God, that we may not rashly break through to Him, but may approach him in the manner in which he has revealed himself to us. This appears more clearly from the adjoining context, where Jacob, recalling the command and promise of God to memory, is supported as by two pillars. Certainly the legitimate method of praying is, that the faithful should answer to God who calls them; and thus there is such a mutual agreement between his word and their vows, that no sweeter and more harmonious symphony can be imagined. “O Lord,” he says, “I return at thy command: thou also didst promise protection to me returning; it is therefore right that thou shouldest become the guide of my journey.” This is a holy boldness, when, having discharged our duty according to God’s calling, we familiarly ask of him whatsoever he has promised; since he, by binding himself gratuitously to us, becomes in a sense voluntarily our debtor. But whoever, relying on no command or promise of God, offers his prayers, does nothing but cast vain and empty words into the air. "
― John Calvin , Commentaries, 23 Vols
70
" Innovation and disruption are ideas that originated in the arena of business but which have since been applied to arenas whose values and goals are remote from the values and goals of business. People aren’t disk drives. Public schools, colleges and universities, churches, museums, and many hospitals, all of which have been subjected to disruptive innovation, have revenues and expenses and infrastructures, but they aren’t industries in the same way that manufacturers of hard-disk drives or truck engines or drygoods are industries. Journalism isn’t an industry in that sense, either.
Doctors have obligations to their patients, teachers to their students, pastors to their congregations, curators to the public, and journalists to their readers--obligations that lie outside the realm of earnings, and are fundamentally different from the obligations that a business executive has to employees, partners, and investors. Historically, institutions like museums, hospitals, schools, and universities have been supported by patronage, donations made by individuals or funding from church or state. The press has generally supported itself by charging subscribers and selling advertising. (Underwriting by corporations and foundations is a funding source of more recent vintage.) Charging for admission, membership, subscriptions and, for some, earning profits are similarities these institutions have with businesses. Still, that doesn’t make them industries, which turn things into commodities and sell them for gain. "
― Jill Lepore
71
" We propose that use of the term “false memory” to describe errors in memory for details directly contributes to removing the social context of abuse from research on memory for trauma. As the term “false memories” has increasingly been used to describe errors in details, the scientific weight of the term has increased. In turn, we see that the term “false memories” is treated as a construct supported by scientific fact, whereas other terms associated with questions about the veracity of abuse memories have been treated as suspect. For example, “recovered memories” often appears in quotations, whereas “false memories” does not (Campbell, 2003).The quotation marks suggest that one term is questioned, whereas the other is accepted as fact. Accepting “false memories” of abuse as fact reflects the subtle assimilation of the term into the cognitive literature, where the term is used increasingly to describe intrusions of semantically related words into lists of related words. The term, rooted in the controversy over the accuracy of abuse memories recalled during psychotherapy (Schacter, 1999), implies generalization of errors in details to memory for abuse—experienced largely by women and children (Campbell, 2003)." from: What's in a Name for Memory Errors? Implications and Ethical Issues Arising From the Use of the Term “False Memory” for Errors in Memory for Details, Journal: Ethics & Behavior "
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" Note, though, something else of great significance about the whole Christian theology of resurrection, ascension, second coming, and hope. This theology was born out of confrontation with the political authorities, out of the conviction that Jesus was already the true Lord of the world who would one day be manifested as such. The rapture theology avoids this confrontation because it suggests that Christians will miraculously be removed from this wicked world. Perhaps that is why such theology is often Gnostic in its tendency towards a private dualistic spirituality and towards a political laissez-faire quietism. And perhaps that is partly why such theology with its dreams of Armageddon, has quietly supported the political status quo in a way that Paul would never have done. "
― N.T. Wright , Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
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" To turn the page to the next chapter of a more satisfying life-as-adventure, these steps that have proved fruitful for me -- when I've actually followed them.1. Find Your True North to Become More JoyfulFirst be clear about choosing a goal that rings true. Forget " should" or adopting someone else's goal for you.2. Picture Being Your HeroAfraid you will fail? Supplant your fear with a greater motivation. When you are tempted to fall back, picture how you'll feel when you succeed. ." Rather than talking about what you are giving up or how you might fail, reflect upon and discuss the benefits you clearly see.3. Surround Yourself With Mutual Support SystemsTo keep your resolve, surround yourself with those who want you to succeed - and who are also on a path of practice. Agree on shared and individual behaviors that reinforce your mutual support. The authors of Influencer found that is the only way to permanently change.4. Involve Your Senses To Stay On Your PathTie your goal for your new chapter to your frequent experiences. Write it down. Say it out loud. Associate it with things you see, hear, smell, taste and touch every day. Plant sticky messages on your bathroom mirror, your car dashboard and smart device screen. Smell your shampoo and connect it with living that chapter. Brush your teeth and feel the motion towards it.5. Notice Where You Get DetouredNotice your pattern of avoidance. What activities get you sidetracked? What time of day or day of the week is it most likely to happen? What else is happening that can numb you into avoidance? What colleagues and friends help or hinder you on your path? Conversely, when are your stronger moments?6. Plan A Grand RewardThe bigger the change, the larger the reward you deserve. Enable others who supported you, to savor it with you. Since behavior is contagious to the third degree, you don't know which friends, and friends of your friends' friends might be moved, by your example, to also turn the page to the next chapter of the adventure story they were meant to live. "
76
" The movement of descent and discovery begins at the moment you consciously become dissatisfied with life. Contrary to most professional opinion, this gnawing dissatisfaction with life is not a sign of " mental illness," nor an indication of poor social adjustment, nor a character disorder. For concealed within this basic unhappiness with life and existence is the embryo of a growing intelligence, a special intelligence usually buried under the immense weight of social shams. A person who is beginning to sense the suffering of life is, at the same time, beginning to awaken to deeper realities, truer realities. For suffering smashes to pieces the complacency of our normal fictions about reality, and forces us to become alive in a special sense—to see carefully, to feel deeply, to touch ourselves and our worlds in ways we have heretofore avoided. It has been said, and truly I think, that suffering is the first grace. In a special sense, suffering is almost a time of rejoicing, for it marks the birth of creative insight. But only in a special sense. Some people cling to their suffering as a mother to its child, carrying it as a burden they dare not set down. They do not face suffering with awareness, but rather clutch at their suffering, secretly transfixed with the spasms of martyrdom. Suffering should neither be denied awareness, avoided, despised, not glorified, clung to, dramatized. The emergence of suffering is not so much good as it is a good sign, an indication that one is starting to realize that life lived outside unity consciousness is ultimately painful, distressing, and sorrowful. The life of boundaries is a life of battles—of fear, anxiety, pain, and finally death. It is only through all manner of numbing compensations, distractions, and enchantments that we agree not to question our illusory boundaries, the root cause of the endless wheel of agony. But sooner or later, if we are not rendered totally insensitive, our defensive compensations begin to fail their soothing and concealing purpose. As a consequence, we begin to suffer in one way or another, because our awareness is finally directed toward the conflict-ridden nature of our false boundaries and the fragmented life supported by them. "
79
" Those who have not lived in New Orleans have missed an incredible, glorious, vital city--a place with an energy unlike anywhere else in the world, a majority-African American city where resistance to white supremacy has cultivated and supported a generous, subversive, and unique culture of vivid beauty. From jazz, blues, and and hip-hop to secondlines, Mardi Gras Indians, jazz funerals, and the citywide tradition of red beans and rice on Monday nights, New Orleans is a place of art and music and food and traditions and sexuality and liberation. "
― Jordan Flaherty , Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six
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" At this point, I can no longer avoid setting out, in an initial, provisional statement, my own hypothesis about the origin of “bad conscience.” It is not easy to get people to attend to it, and it requires them to consider it at length, to guard it, and to sleep on it. I consider bad conscience the profound illness which human beings had to come down with, under the pressure of the most fundamental of all the changes which they experienced—that change when they finally found themselves locked within the confines of society and peace. Just like the things water animals must have gone though when they were forced either to become land animals or to die off, so events must have played themselves out with this half-beast so happily adapted to the wilderness, war, wandering around, adventure—suddenly all its instincts were devalued and “disengaged.”
From this point on, these animals were to go on foot and “carry themselves”; whereas previously they had been supported by the water. A terrible heaviness weighed them down. In performing the simplest things they felt ungainly. In dealing with this new unknown world, they no longer had their old leader, the ruling unconscious drives which guided them safely. These unfortunate creatures were reduced to thinking, inferring, calculating, bringing together cause and effect, reduced to their “consciousness,” their most impoverished and error-prone organ! I believe that on earth there has never been such a feeling of misery, such a leaden discomfort—while at the same time those old instincts had not all at once stopped imposing their demands! Only it was difficult and seldom possible to do their bidding. For the most part, they had to find new and, as it were, underground satisfactions for them. "
― Friedrich Nietzsche , On the Genealogy of Morals
