#and i am happy to answer more specific questions too because billions is simply So Much All The Time
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Hello I am the “what is billions about” anon pls share ur thoughts as well I am listening
hello!! i have many thoughts and milo covered quite a few of them in their answer (which i’m sure you checked out already but maybe someone Else reading this hasn’t yet, who’s to say) so i’m basically gonna supplement that post / give a slightly more structured Season By Season breakdown of What Is Billions, Anyway. spoilers, naturally.
first, an Overall Statement, on which i’m going to quote one of the billions showrunners, brian koppelman (here he’s also speaking for the other billions showrunner / his creative partner, david levien), on what he hopes people take away from the show:
I think that people love to watch hyper-intelligent, hyper-verbal people who are charismatic and charming, and who really love what they do, and who love being in this contest and this game.
For us, what we’re interested in, is why America is willing to substitute verbal acuity, charm, power and wealth for true qualities of character, like kindness and empathy? We hope that by watching the show and getting off on it when these characters do really bad things, it makes us all wonder why we’re rooting for them sometimes.
these characters are forever gunning to speak in the most obscure references and quickest witticisms of anyone in the room, to give the most inspirational off-the-cuff monologues, to indulge in the best meals and the most expensive luxuries — and constantly saying and doing horrible things to one another and to total strangers, because they can. so that’s a major Theme to keep in mind. (we talk about brian and david quite a bit. authorly intentions are interesting.)
season one sets up The World Of Billions and the tangled relationships between the three initial leads. bobby “axe” axelrod is a rich & successful hedge fund ceo who’s widely loved in nyc for famously surviving 9/11 and engaging in philanthropy. chuck rhoades is a ruthless us attorney in manhattan who prosecutes financial crime but has, until now, avoided going after axe and his hedge fund, axe capital, despite axe’s reputation for Shady Dealings. wendy rhoades is chuck’s wife, and axe capital’s on-call performance coach / therapist and axe’s bff. (allegedly. i’m rarely convinced that their friendship is as Real And Weird And Deep as we’re meant to believe, but we are meant to believe it.) chuck can’t deal with his wife being best friends with some other guy, let alone some guy who’s doing finance crimes, so once he resolves to Take Axe Down, he spends most of the season figuring out how, with the help of two assistant us attorneys, kate sacker and bryan connerty. axe doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong, and can’t deal with any man getting more of wendy’s attention than he does, so he spends most of the season fighting back. (let’s also note that axe has a wife, lara, who is at best uneasy about wendy’s sway over him.)
chuck uses his power to do a lot of questionable things, up to and including stealing wendy’s notes on her axe capital patients, ostensibly in the service of justice. axe uses his wealth to do a lot of questionable things, up to and including letting one of his employees die to protect axe from prosecution when he could have extended the employee’s life, so he can keep making money. (also, we — and many, many people in nyc — find out that axe made his fortune off of 9/11 and tried to keep it buried for 14 years. he’s not so well loved after that.) the season ends with wendy deciding she’s sick of both of them, quitting her job at axe capital, and kicking chuck out of the house, followed by axe & chuck meeting face to face to yell about how much they hate each other and how they’ve both lost wendy by being so exquisitely terrible.
so this is the world that taylor mason (the most important character, as you know) walks into. rich men make their wealth of off suffering and death; powerful men abuse their public trust for personal ends; and the lives and wellbeing of everyone else turn on the whims of the rich and powerful and whatever years-long personal grudges they feel like satisfying today. (and sometimes, rich and powerful people will walk up to each other and say things like “What’s the point of having fuck you money if you never say fuck you?” and “You’re sure to become President of the Libertarian Club of Danbury Federal Prison.”)
season two introduces us to taylor and demonstrates that it’s not so easy for axe & chuck to become disentangled from wendy, or one another. early on, axe, chuck, & wendy are all under legal scrutiny due to the circumstances of chuck stealing wendy’s notes and wendy leaving axe capital. when axe is introduced to taylor by mafee, their mentor, and recognizes their brilliance, he enlists them to help attack another hedge fund ceo who wendy’s chosen to work for (and who is generally awful); chuck, who’s in danger of being fired, holds onto his job by successfully prosecuting (with the assistance of connerty and sacker) a prominent banker who’s also a friend of axe. axe decides to invest in a poor town in upstate new york, as a favor to a family friend, and puts taylor on figuring out if it’s a good deal; chuck is pushed to run for governor by his father, chuck senior, and senior sabotages a deal that would have brought a lot of money to the upstate town, which means a lot of money potentially lost for axe capital. (taylor, perhaps surprisingly, calls for stripping the town for all it’s worth to make up the loss.)
taylor gains favor with axe, gets used to a life of increasing wealth and power, finds themself on connerty’s radar, and starts to see the personal costs of doing business at axe capital. chuck & axe set their sights on one another again, which isn’t helped by axe finally managing to hire back wendy, a deal that strains chuck and wendy’s ongoing attempt to repair their marriage and hastens the crumbling of axe and lara’s marriage. (other than axe, the only person happy to see wendy back at axe capital is taylor — the two properly meet for the first time and click immediately.) chuck convinces senior to invest in a company, ice juice, that chuck’s best friend, ira schirmer, has also invested in, knowing that axe will try to ruin the company to hurt chuck and profit from its ruin — he does, and chuck gets it all on camera. wendy is again stuck in the middle, without knowing what chuck is planning, and decides to take a chunk of the profits axe is making. axe gets arrested, and wendy & chuck go home together, but only after axe sets taylor up to lead axe capital in his absence, lies about coming home to lara, and hugs wendy goodbye while chuck watches.
season three elevates taylor to more and more power, while setting axe against them — and, shockingly, on the same side as chuck — for the first time. axe is frustrated about the ice juice case and about having to give up his right to trade in order for axe capital, under taylor’s leadership and (allegedly) without axe’s input, to do business at all. (he’s also frustrated about lara deciding to divorce him, but it’s on the back burner, really.) chuck isn’t doing much better — senior and ira now hate him for using them as bait for axe; the new attorney general, jock jeffcoat, is forcing him (and sacker, who’s now his right hand attorney) to take on cases he hates in order to keep his job; and connerty, who’s supposed to be leading the ice juice case against axe, keeps finding evidence that points to chuck’s involvement. while taylor is in charge of axe cap, and with wendy advising them, they get accustomed to doing things their own way & dealing with crises, decide to hire quantitative analysts (aka quants! hello winston!) to help develop an algorithm that will change how axe capital does business, fend off / work around axe’s repeated attempts to make their decisions for them, and grow disillusioned with the culture of axe capital. (an example: taylor, and everyone at axe capital, watch a man die in an explosion on live television, and almost everyone around them starts cheering because they’ll make money off of it.)
chuck & axe are both fighting to make sure the other guy goes down over ice juice — until the news of wendy’s involvement gets out, and they have to work together to keep her safe and out of jail. (their plan to do this involves putting mafee in the line of fire, which taylor picks up on and confronts wendy about.) once the case is resolved, and chuck, axe, & wendy all get off scot-free, chuck reconciles with senior & ira and fires connerty for daring to come after him, and axe returns to axe capital and knocks taylor off their perch, back to being a regular employee. axe prepares to raise new money for axe capital, while undoing much of taylor’s work and belittling them and their requests for input and autonomy. chuck gives up his run for governor and tries to get jeffcoat out of office. but both of them are blindsided by betrayal — axe by taylor starting their own hedge fund, taylor mason capital, with the money raised for axe capital, and chuck by connerty and sacker siding with jeffcoat to get chuck fired. with chuck no longer the us attorney, he and wendy agree he’s got nothing against axe, and the three of them meet to start planning their retribution.
season four focuses on everyone’s desire for revenge against someone else, particularly axe & wendy’s separate but related desires for revenge against taylor. axe is trying to crush taylor & their company any way he can (sometimes with the assistance of his new girlfriend, rebecca cantu), and firing / threatening anyone at axe capital who gets in touch with them, because he can’t bear to let them succeed. chuck is running for state attorney general, because he needs a position of power to go after connerty, who’s now the us attorney, and jeffcoat. axe & chuck make a deal: if axe helps chuck get elected, chuck will make sure taylor is arrested. (“arrested for what?” axe doesn’t care what. just crimes.) wendy is helping both axe & chuck with their respective goals and feeling vindictive herself because she believes taylor took advantage of her empathy for them to put them in a position to start their own fund. taylor does well fending off axe’s attacks at first, with the help of mafee, their coo sara hammon, and other new employees. then their father, douglas mason, comes to visit, and three things become clear: 1) their relationship is difficult because he has almost no respect for them 2) they’re desperate for his approval 3) he’s come to see them because he wants their financial support for a personal project.
chuck wins his election, with axe’s help and with a very personal public speech. once in office, he agrees to help senior with a real estate deal; his legally questionable “help” catches the attention of connerty, sacker, and jeffcoat, who go to equally questionable lengths to prove that chuck is doing crimes. (an example: breaking into senior’s apartment to steal evidence from his biometrically locked safe.) wendy, who’s angry about her inclusion in chuck’s very personal speech, reaches out to taylor to talk. she learns that taylor is funding douglas’s personal project and, using her knowledge of their strained relationship from therapy sessions with taylor, works with axe to force taylor to kill the project. douglas walks out; taylor is devastated and wants some revenge of their own. (so does sara, who reports wendy for medical malpractice.) taylor attacks a company owned by rebecca, and axe supports her, until rebecca & taylor cut both their losses by cutting a deal. this makes axe so mad that he destroys the company instead, alienating rebecca and bankrupting taylor mason capital. chuck & senior’s real estate deal turns out to be a trap for connerty and jeffcoat (but not sacker, because she’s too smart for that), and it succeeds. however, chuck was supposed to be helping wendy keep her medical license; when she finds out that he didn’t do a thing, she walks out on him and into axe’s apartment. chuck, who was already sick of axe, “arrests” taylor and tells them that, though axe wants him to blackmail taylor into returning to axe capital, chuck wants them to go back as his operative to take axe down. taylor agrees to all sides of this deal, and returns to axe capital with their employees in tow, intending to just wait it out until axe and chuck destroy one another.
season five forces the leads to deal with the messes they made in season four, and smashes up & reforms the relationships of that season. axe, who’s feeling adrift after reaching a net worth of $10 billion and not feeling happy about it, is going in all directions at once. he decides that fellow deca-billionaire mike prince, who keeps swiping things he wants, is his new arch-nemesis; he applies for a bank charter for axe capital so he’ll never have to work again; he hires a artist, nico tanner, to paint for him on commission. the only thing he doesn’t do is run axe capital, even with the return of taylor, who he said he wanted around to help him make better plays, and their confession to him that they came back in collaboration with chuck. axe & chuck are ostensibly still allies, but chuck, with sacker behind him, is trying every angle he can think of to send axe to jail and prevent him from getting a bank charter. taylor, who’s struggling to achieve anything under the weight of appeasing both axe & chuck and the interference of other axe capital people in taylor mason capital’s work, teams up with wendy to win over investors and reinvents their fund as taylor mason carbon, focused on environmentally friendly investing. wendy and chuck get divorced, but are still entangled by shared assets and familial commitments; wendy and tanner take to one another romantically, axe finds out, and as we recall from season one, axe can’t deal with any man getting more of wendy’s attention than he does; and all of taylor’s employees are suspicious of wendy and her intentions.
season five hasn’t yet been filmed or aired in full thanks to covid, but where we’ve left off, axe has lost out on his bank charter, discovered that taylor and wendy teamed up with prince, and deliberately driven a wedge between axe & tanner, all in one night. it seems likely that wendy’s soon going to be as alienated from axe as she already is from chuck, and probable or at least possible that there’s more to taylor’s partnership with wendy than we’re led to believe. but we really have no idea what’s going to happen or even when we’re going to see it happen, and in a way that’s the best description of billions anyone could give.
#this is long. i apologize but also i should mention that even this leaves out a Lot of characters and plot details#and i am happy to answer more specific questions too because billions is simply So Much All The Time#inbox#anonymous#billions#taylor mason#bobby axelrod#chuck rhoades#wendy rhoades#lara axelrod#bryan connerty#kate sacker#jock jeffcoat#chuck rhoades senior
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gold rush
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summary: Enemies to lovers, inspired by the lovely Taylor Swift’s Gold Rush!
warnings: mention of alcohol consumption, reader and Harry being bitches, angst, and a good ending bc I can't seem to leave anything on a bad note
If someone asked you to list off everything you hated about Harry Styles, you were positive that you would be talking for a solid 10 minutes. He was the epitome of everything you despised. To be more specific, you despised people who acted “deep”, people who acted humble, people who pretended to be different from the general population, people who acted like they didn’t know millions would drop to their knees with a simple wave or smile, and people who acted perfect. And as far as you knew, that was everything that Harry Styles was.
A famous rockstar and millionaire who comes back to his hometown, which happens to be yours as well, and acts like he wasn’t any different. He pretends to blush when someone would compliment him and ask for a picture, like he hasn't been asked for pictures millions of times before. He waves his black amex card around and buys one fucking coffee with it. You hated him, because everyone loved him.
And of course with your luck, a few years ago when your mom had met his mom at a neighborhood get together, they became best friends, and had made Christmas Eve dinner a tradition between your family and his. That’s where you met him, and that's when your hatred began. You knew who he was and had been a big fan of One Direction (Harry was even your favorite), but after you had had a conversation with him? Let’s say your excitement was diminished.
So here you were, driving through the snow in your rental car to your mom’s house a week before Christmas. Your playlist had changed songs and before you knew it you heard the familiar guitar strums. You couldn't bring yourself to change it, in all honesty you loved Harry’s first album, and most recent album Fine Line. Even though it came out 5 days ago you had it on repeat. As much as you hated Harry Styles, you would always love his music.
After you had arrived at the house you grew up in, said hi to your family and got settled, all you wanted was some coffee. You said your goodbyes and promised to be home soon, and drove through town to the coffeeshop, bundling into your sweater, jacket, and scarf before stepping out into the snow and making your way inside.
The bell rung as you swung open the door and almost immediately you spotted a familiar face, partially covered by a beanie and a scarf. Wonderful, you thought to yourself. You made your way to the counter and ordered a hot coffee and a scone before sitting down at one of the tables on the opposite side of the cafe. Anything to avoid him.
You heard your name phrased like a question and looked up, your eyes following from the Chelsea boots on the tile, to the trousers, then jacket covered sweater, scarf, then his face. Your chest clenched in frustration. “Harry.” You nodded back, making it obvious you wanted nothing to do with him.
He definitely did not get the hint because almost immediately the seat in front of you was taken over by his presence. “I didn’t think the Grinch would be n’town so early.”
Your cheeks burned and you quickly shot back. “And I thought Scrooge was dead by now but I guess I was wrong,” You rolled your eyes. “Also, are you sure I’m the one out of both of us who’s the Grinch, look at your sweater.” You added, eyes trailing down to his light green hairy sweater.
“If we’re basin’ it off looks then yes m’sure you would be the Grinch.” Harry retorted, scoffing.
“Wow Harold! You are just absolutely hilarious, are you sure you went into the right industry?” You raised your brows and gave a fake smile, knowing he could see right through it. Before he could answer, a waitress had brought over your coffee and scone, setting it down on the table.
She looked up at you reciting your order and giving you a smile before she did a double take at the man sitting in front of you. Oh god. “I’m so sorry, but are you Harry Styles?” the girl asked, eyes practically turning into hearts before you.
“Yes, I am, and y’name is?” He asked cheekily, extending a hand for her to shake. She looked like she was about to die as she gently grabbed his hand and shook it, reciting her name like she had attempted to memorize it the night before.
“Well, it’s very nice t’meet you, would y’like a picture?” He asked and you swore you couldn’t roll your eyes back further into your head.
“Oh! Um,” her eyes darted over to you as you sat back in your seat, sipping your coffee. “I wouldn’t want to interrupt anything...” She trailed off as if she was asking for your permission.
You wanted to say she already had anyways, but there was no reason for you to be upset at this girl. You would act like her too if you didn't know who Harry actually was. “Don’t worry, you aren’t.” You smiled at her, genuinely. Maybe she would drag Harry away long enough so you could eat your food and drink your coffee and scram.
She let out a breath it seemed she’d been holding and pulls out her phone. You purse your lips and sigh before offering to take a photo for them. She thanks you about a billion times while Harry stands up from his seat and wraps his arm gently around her shoulders. You stand up as well to get a few decent photos of the two of them smiling and hand the phone back to her. She tells Harry she’s been a fan for years and loves him as well as his music and message and he thanks her for supporting him. That’s the one think you like about Harry, how he truly is grateful for his fans. Everything else sucked. After they get done speaking she noticed your coffee and scone are done.
“God, I’m so sorry, would you guys like any refills or more pastries? It’s on the house.” She smiles, patting down her apron.
You look over at Harry who had sat down again and look back at the sweet girl in front of you. “No thank you.” She nods while Harry repeats your words and head back behind the counter.
“That was nice of you, back there. Thought the Grinch was too mean t’take photos for people.” He chuckled at you.
“If this is your way of thanking me, you aren't doing a very good job Harold.” You said sharply, pulling your coat off the back of the chair.
“It wasn’t m’way of thanking’ you. Y’need to be brought off y’high horse once in a while.” He shrugged like he wasn't just blatantly rude to you. Sure you both had a witty banter but it always seemed Harry took it too far, and well, that's one of the reasons you hate him.
“Maybe apply that to yourself once in a while.” You huffed, shrugging your jacket on and pulling your scarf back on as well.
He ignored your words and raised a brow. “Leavin’ already?”
“Yeah actually, I came here to relax but that's not working out so well.” You gestured between the two of you. You were going to leave it like that but as you stood up you could see the girl behind the counter waving for you to come over. Brows furrowed in confusion you headed over to her.
“I just wanted to say thank you so much for taking photos for us, and Harry looks really happy with you so, thank you for making him happy.” She said quietly so only you could hear. Your eyes widened and you opened your mouth, about to tell her there was no way in hell you’d ever date Harry but the way she looked at you with adoration caused you to smile and simply say, “Thank you.” Before bidding her a good day.
You dug through your bag as you went to go to the door to leave, looking for your car keys when a body appeared in front of you. You stopped immediately, looking to see that fucking grin and a hand holding your keys. “Lookin’ for these?” He teased, waving them in front. You reached out to grab them and he only pulled them away and you quickly realized how this would go.
“Harry, give me my keys.”
“Magic word?” He asked turning his ear towards you. Instead you blew air in it and grabbed your keys when he was distracted, brushing past him to open the door into the freezing air. The sparks you felt as you passed him was definitely because you were cold, right?
**
Soon it was Christmas Eve and you don't think you’ve ever been dreading an evening more, other than the past few years on this exact day. It was snowing when you and your mom arrived at the Styles household. You knocked on the door loud so you both could be let in as soon as possible.
“Sweetie, I don't think knocking that hard is really welcoming.”
You pursed your lips and turned around to your mom, knowing this was just how she was and you bit back a snarky comment simply replying, “I’m just really cold.”
After those words left your mouth the door opened behind you and you turned around, face to face with the curly headed man-child. He nodded at you, saying your name before calling out to your mom. She smiled and gave him a quick hug before he ushered her in the house, forgetting about you outside. Already a wonderful start to the evening, you thought, sighing as you walked inside onto the wooden floors.
You heard laughs and exclamations in the dining room, and you made your way there, knowing this house a little too well. Anne called out your name as she saw you step in, rushing forward to give you a kiss on the cheek and a hug. “It’s so nice t’see you, love. You get more gorgeous every year.” You but your lip and smiled at her, “And you get younger each year.” You softly said as she laughed and led you over to Gemma.
“Hi Gems,” You grinned, giving her a hug. She returned it, just as happy to see you. Out of the Styles siblings, she was your favorite, obviously, but the two of you had actually become friends, not just family-friends. “Hey, love. Long time no see.” You laughed as you both pulled away. “Too long.”
Your mom had brought over some pie so she sat it down on the dining table where the rest of the food was. “Well loves, let all sit down!” Anne said, taking her seat at the head of the table. You opted to sit in the chair in front of you, while your mom sat to the right of Anne, so she was diagonally across from you. Gemma then took the seat across from you, next to your mom. Oh no. The only seat Harry could sit in would be the one next to you.
He looked around the table and bit his lip as if that would help the situation but he ended up sighing just loud enough for you to hear it as he plopped into the seat next to you. His hair moved with him, falling perfectly into place on his head. Of course his hair would be perfect like he apparently is.
Everyone quickly jumped into conversations about everyone’s life, and what they’ve been doing, focusing on Gemma for the most part as you all dug in to the food. The conversation then led to Harry’s career and life at the moment.
You zoned in after deciding not to pay attention after he started talking to hear him say, “I don’t think m’different, I just have a different job y’know?”
You scoffed out of reflex and all eyes at the table turned to you. “Yeah, a different job that makes you known to millions of people around the world, that in itself changes a person.” You pointed out, taking a sip of your water afterwards.
Your mom hissed your name scoldingly. “That was unnecessary.” she finished, her eyes glaring at you.
Your eyes grew wide as you realized you forgot you were in front of your family, and the rest of Harry’s family.
“It’s okay, Miss.” Harry spoke up with your mom’s name, looking at her for a moment with a smile before turning to face you. “We can have different opinions but y’don't really know me all that well d’you?” His captivating eyes locked onto yours and you suddenly felt small in front of him. Before you could respond Anne exclaimed, “Time for dessert, yeah?”
As everyone went to put their plates in the sink, you trailed behind feeling unusually guilty, not how you normally felt after similar conversations with Harry. Everyone else had picked up conversation again as they made their way back to the table, but you kept your mouth shut the whole time, only mumbling a thank you to Anne who served you your pie. Luckily no one seemed to notice you had decided to no longer talk, it would only make things worse, you believed. Except Harry.
He was talking the whole night, trying to ignore that comment you made, because well, he knew that you were only judging him on the surface level. It was strange to him though, that the assumptions hurt more coming from you than the hundreds of people who made the same ones at him everyday. He wished he could say he expected more from you, but the two of you had been at odds since the first day you met. He had absolutely no idea why you had been so nice, then 15 minutes later you weren't laughing at his jokes and rolling your eyes. he had become so fed up with it, it was safe to say he hated you. He enjoyed teasing you and pushing your buttons, but the true frustration he felt for you never went away after all these years of sarcastic comments and stolen glares.
So why was his chest clenching as he looked over at you to see you silently eating your pie and looking down at the table cover? Harry was sure that he had never seen you so resigned before, usually you had all the things in the world to say.
He worked up the courage to softly knock his fabric covered knee against yours. You looked up at the contact, head turning slightly to look at him, but he was faced to his mom, immersed in whatever conversation they were having. An accident it seemed, that he touched you. It was the most contact the two of you have had since you met him, and only then did you shake his hand.
Soon enough everyone finished their pie and you quickly stood up and offered to take them to the sink while they headed to the living room to have a glass of wine and play some games. As you walked past Gemma she gently grabbed your arm and you stopped, looking at her. “Are you okay?” She asked, her face etched with concern.
“I’m fine Gems, maybe ate too much.” You laughed it off and she took your answer hesitantly before heading to the living room. You reached the kitchen and set the plates and forks in the sink, pulling up your sweater sleeves and tucking back your hair as you started the faucet. You heard the beginning of some Christmas music and knew there was no chance anyone would come back to check on you with Andy William’s voice serenading them with lyrics of “the most wonderful time of the year”. Bullshit, you thought.
You began to wash the plates with a sponge that was on the edge of the sink, and immersed yourself in the soapy water, placing plates to dry on the rack, and returning to wash the next.
“Y’don't need t’be doing those.”
You practically jumped out of your skin when you hear this voice. You lowered the water flow and turned to look at him approaching you on your left. “I know.” Was all you said, as you continued to wash the second to last dish.
His eyes widened at your response. He was ready to hear, “It’s called being polite, Harold. Maybe you should try it sometime.” Or a snarky comment like that. But no. You just brushed him off.
He was about to open his mouth and tease you a bit more, just to hear the you that he knew but you beat him to it. “I’m sorry, Harry. About what I said earlier, and... everything before that too.” You mumbled, focusing your attention on scrubbing the last dish that was definitely clean already.
“Oh! Um, thank you.” Was all he could muster out, his heart beating a thousand times a second, as his cheeks turned red. This was odd.
You waited a bit, in the silence, for him to say more but he didn’t, You sighed, putting the last dish on the rack and wiping your hands dry on the towel before turning to him fully.
“Really? I just apologized for like, everything, and you can't do the same?” You asked, looking up at him exasperated. “I’m not the only one here who has been an absolute asshole, it goes both ways.”
He furrowed his brows and looked at you, the wheels visibly turning in his head. “M’sorry too. I mean it. It’s fitting how y’apologized first though, because y’know, you started it.”
He really needed to stop talking.
You glared at him incredulously. “I started it? When I met you, you didn’t even bother to look at me, not even halfway through our introduction you left to talk to someone else. It was like that the entire day, sue me for reacting like any normal person would.” You said, you gaze now focused on his chest. You deflated a bit, after admitting that to him. It was terrible, meeting someone you had adored for years, only for them to leave and not even finish listening to your name.
His mouth formed an “o” shape as his frustration dissipated. Harry couldn't even argue with you on that, because he remembered that night. One of his mates had called for him and he sped off, leaving you in the middle of one of your neighbor’s backyards during a little get together.
“I-I’m sorry. I remember that, y’didn’t deserve that at all, I was a proper arse.” He managed to get out, his lips turning into a line at the tension.
“Yeah,” you laughed a bit. “Every year I’d just hate you more and more, because every time I saw you it seems you hated me more than the last.”
“The same f’me too, y’know.”
“What?” You looked up at him.
“I hated y’cause I thought y’hated me.” He pointed out, his lips turning up into a grin.
You laughed, your head falling into your hands. “I think we should’ve had this conversation years ago,” You said, looking up at the man who didn't seem so bad anymore. “Do you wanna start over?” You asked.
“No, let’s treat it as a bump in the road, y’know? Kiss and makeup.” He grinned, looking up to the ceiling.
You followed his gaze to see a little brach of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling. “That’s an odd place for mistletoe.”
“Doesn't matter, y’have t’follow the rules.” He said cheekily.
He stepped forward as did you, and you brought your hands up to his shoulders. You leaned up and kissed his cheek instead, plush lips against his stubble. You pulled away and smiled at the visible blush on his cheeks.
“You tease.” He laughed, wrapping his arms around you in a warm hug, and in that moment, you finally understood why everyone would die to feel his touch.
low-key hated this ending but its fineee. thank you for all the love <3
#harry styles imagine#harry styles one shot#harry styles angst#harry styles#harry styles x reader#harry styles x y/n#enemies to lovers
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So there’s this meme going around with TMA fans, the whole “hello Jon” thing, but it kind of disappoints me. We, as a fandom, are capable of more. We can do better than this. We just need to Hello Jon. Apologies for the deception, but I wanted to make sure you started reading, so I thought it best not to announce myself.
I’m assuming you’re alone; you always did prefer to read your statements in private. I wouldn’t try too hard to stop reading; there’s every likelihood you’ll just hurt yourself. So just listen.
Now, shall we turn the page and try again?
Statement of Jonah Magnus regarding Jonathan Sims, The Archivist.
Statement begins.
I hope you’ll forgive me the self-indulgence, but I have worked so very hard for this moment, a culmination of two centuries of work. It’s rare that you get the chance to monologue through another, and you can’t tell me you’re not curious.
Why does a man seek to destroy the world?
It’s a simple enough answer: for immortality and power. Uninspired, perhaps, but – my god. The discovery, not simply of the dark and horrible reality of the world in which you live, but that you would quite willingly doom that world and confine the billions in it to an eternity of terror and suffering, all to ensure your own happiness, to place yourself beyond pain and death and fear.
It is an awful thing to know about yourself, but the freedom, Jon, the freedom of it all. I have dedicated my life to handing the world to these Dread Powers all for my own gain, and I feel… nothing but satisfaction in that choice.
I am to be a king of a ruined world, and I shall never die.
I believe there are far more people in this world that would take that bargain than you would ever guess. And I have beaten all of them.
Of course, this desire did not manifest overnight. When Smirke first gathered our little band – Lukas, Scott, and the rest – to discuss and hypothesize on the nature of the things he had learned from Rayner, I felt what I believe we all felt: curiosity, and fear.
But as he compiled his taxonomy and codified his theories on the grand rituals, I began to develop a very specific concern. Smirke was so obsessed with his ideas on balance, even as our fellows began to experiment and fall to the service of our patrons.
I began to worry that if one of them successfully attempted their ritual, then I would be as much a victim as any, trapped in the nightmare landscape of a twisted world.
At first, I attempted prevention, but the cause seemed hopeless. The only way to ensure I did not suffer the tribulations of what I believed to be an inevitable transformation was to bring it about myself. So what began as an experiment soon became a race.
Beyond that, I was getting older, and mortality began to weigh more heavily on my mind. How much in this world is done because we fear death, the last and greatest terror?
I convinced Smirke to work on Millbank, leading him to design it as a temple to all the Fears in equilibrium, such that my own modifications to the design of the Panopticon went… unremarked.
It. Took. Years, for the dread of the prisoners to fully suffuse the place, and I was an old man before I made my first attempt at the Watcher’s Crown, sat in the center of that colossal eye, the great ring of cells encircling me like a coronet.
It was… flawed, of course, as all Smirke’s rituals were, and none of the inmates survived as the power I attempted to harness shook the building almost to pieces, and the murky swamp upon which the prison was built consumed it.
But it left me a gift: For sat in that watchtower, I could see everything I turned my mind to.
It was a dizzying power, and one I discovered I maintained even as I found vessels to extend my life. Of course, I had to make sure the location was kept under my control while I worked on revising my plans, and so I moved the organization I had founded to assist in my research down to London, and the Institute as you know it was born.
I’ll not bore you with details of my bodies and failures through those intervening years. Suffice to say I kept busy, both planning my own next attempt, and doing my best to stymie those others who tried versions of their own.
Surely my interpretation of the Watcher’s Crown had been incomplete; there had been some element of the ritual I had overlooked.
It was not until I met Gertrude Robinson that things began to really come into focus.
You see, the role of Archivist has been part of the Beholding for as far back as my research can go. This isn’t uncommon for the Powers; most of the beliefs around them are guesswork and fallible human interpretation, but there are certain throughlines and consistencies that can be spotted, regardless of the trappings.
But Gertrude was unlike any other Archivist. She simply did not care about compiling experiences or collecting the fears of others. She was driven to stop those who served the Powers.
More than once I thought she must secretly be of the Hunt – but there was never that sick joy in her, that thrill of predator and prey. She had simply decided that this was her position in life, and went about it with a practicality that even I found disconcerting at times.
I once asked her what drove her, what had started her down that path. She told me the Desolation had killed her cat.
I don’t know if she was joking, and, to be honest, I could never bring myself to look into her mind and find out for sure.
In any case, Gertrude’s ruthless efficiency in derailing and collapsing rituals threw into stark relief a question that had been bothering me for almost a hundred and fifty years: In the whole span of humanity, why had nobody ever succeeded?
Perhaps there were a long line of Gertrude Robinsons throughout history, but I found that hard to credit. Could it be, then, that there was something in the very concept of the rituals that meant they couldn’t succeed?
She was clearly having similar thoughts in that last year, all of which culminated with the People’s Church.
When I saw that she was making no preparations whatsoever to stop it, I realized she was putting into practice a theory, and one she couldn’t afford to be wrong. She was going to wait, and see if the unopposed ritual succeeded, or if it collapsed under its own strain as mine had all hose years ago.
Knowing Gertrude, I’m sure she had a backup plan if she had miscalculated – but she had not. The ritual failed. And all at once, I realized what had to be done.
You see, the thing about the Fears is that they can never be truly separated from each other. When does the fear of sudden violence transition into the fear of hunted prey? When does the mask of the Stranger become the deception of the Spiral?
Even those that seem to exist in direct opposition rely on each other for their definition as much as up relies on down.
To try and create a world with only the Buried makes as much sense as trying to conceive a world with only down.
Every ritual tied itself so closely to a single power as to render itself impossible. They could bring their patron close, but never sever it from the others, and eventually it would be violently pulled back into the place next to reality where they dwell.
The solution, then, is simple: A new ritual must be devised which will bring through all the Powers at once. All fourteen, as I had hoped I could complete it before any new powers such as Extinction were able to fully emerge. All under the Eye’s auspices, of course. We mustn’t forget our roots.
And there was only one being that could possibly serve as a lynchpin for this new ritual: The Archivist. A position that had so recently become vacant, thanks to Gertrude’s ill-timed retirement plans.
Because the thing about the Archivist is that – well, it’s a bit of a misnomer.
It might, perhaps, be better named: The Archive.
Because you do not administer and preserve the records of fear, Jon. You are a record of fear, both in mind as you walk the shuddering record of each statement, and in body as the Powers each leave their mark upon you.
You are a living chronicle of terror.
Perhaps, then, if I could find an Archivist and have each Power mark them, have them confront each one and each in turn instill in them a powerful and acute fear for their life, they could be turned into a conduit for the coming of this – nightmare kingdom.
Do you see where I’m going, Jon?
It does tickle me, that in this world of would-be occult dynasties and ageless monsters, the Chosen One is simply that – someone I chose. It’s not in your blood, or your soul, or your destiny. It’s just in your own, rotten luck.
I’ll admit, my options were somewhat limited, but My God, when you came to me already marked by the Web, I knew it had to be you. I even held out some small hope you had been sent by the Spider as some sort of implicit blessing on the whole project, and, do you know what, I think it was.
Of course, I had to bide my time, get a measure of you before I began to push, learn how you worked – So I decided I would wait until something came for you, and see how you reacted. Attacks upon the Archives were not uncommon during Gertrude’s tenure, and, while she was always prepared, I made sure you would not be.
I reasoned if you couldn’t survive a single encounter, you were unlikely to make it through all fourteen. So, when Jane Prentiss attacked, I watched eagerly, one hand on the gas release from the start.
You acquitted yourself well enough, so I decided to see how far you would get, though I waited until the worms were in you before I pulled the lever. I needed to make sure you felt that fear all the way to your bones.
The discovery that one of the Stranger’s minions had infiltrated the Institute in the aftermath was certainly a pleasant bonus. Even if that sliver of paranoia, that vague wrongness you couldn’t quite place wouldn’t count as a mark, it was only a matter of time before it confronted you in a far more direct and affecting matter.
Admittedly, given the advent of the Unknowing, I needn’t have bothered. But what’s the old saying about hindsight?
More important to me was Sasha’s encounter with the Distortion. If it had taken an interest, then I very much wanted it to cross your path.
So I found one of its current victims and convinced her to make a statement.
Poor Helen. I actually had to put her in a taxi myself, she was getting so lost in those narrow London side streets.
It worked, though.
Between the stabbing and at least two desperate flights into its doors – you’re marked very deeply by the Spiral.
Jurgen Leitner was a surprise, of course, and I was forced to improvise. I had no idea how much Gertrude would have told him, and he could very easily have derailed everything if you learned too much too fast.
I… justified it to myself saying I was going to have to send you out into the world anyway, if you were to encounter more of the Powers, but I can’t honestly pretend it wasn’t a… rather rash move.
Still. I’d requested Detective Tonner be assigned to the case when they found Gertrude’s body in the hope that having a Hunter in the mix would eventually lead to a confrontation, and setting you up as a killer certainly hastened that.
Then it was just a matter of feeding you statements to lead you to a few Avatars I thought were likely to harm you – but probably would stop short of actually killing you.
Jude served her purpose exactly as I had hoped, as did our dearly departed Mr Crew, marking you for the Desolation and the Vast.
Honestly, I had – nothing to do with Melanie and her Slaughter adventure, but when I saw the situation, I made sure to trap her here, so when her rage bubbled over you would be right there, a ready target.
I didn’t foresee the mark coming from surgery gone wrong, but it was a very pleasant surprise.
The Unknowing was a distraction, but not an unwelcome one. For this to work, you needed more than just the marks; you needed power. And that was something the Unknowing served to test, though it posed no actual danger in the grand scheme of things.
And it did serve another purpose, of course. It inadvertently pushed you to confront death, a mark I had been very worried about trying to orchestrate. If I tried too early, you’d just die. Too late, and you might be powerful enough to see the attempt coming, and maybe even understand why.
As it was, it was just right, and once again, you came through with flying colors.
By this point, your abilities were coming along in leaps and bounds, and I was concerned that meeting face-to-face might end up with you Knowing something you shouldn’t.
I had initially planned to go into hiding, but when your colleagues surprised me with the police, well. It was simple enough to cut a deal.
All that remained, then, were the Dark, the Flesh, the Buried, and the Lonely.
I was a little put out when that idiot Jared Hopworth misinterpreted my letters and attacked the Institute too soon, before you were even out of the hospital, but then – Ho, you should have see my face when you voluntarily went to him.
I couldn’t see what happened in there, of course, but given how you came out, I’m very sure it counts as a mark.
I suspected the coffin might turn up again, and once it did, it was simply a matter of getting any, uh… restraining factors you might have had flying off on a wild goose chase, and waiting.
Honestly, Detective Tonner has been proving invaluable through this process. I’d been racking my brains for months about what I could use to lure you in.
And, of course, I knew the Dark Sun was just sitting there waiting. So when it came time, I just whipped up another apocalypse and sent you on your merry way.
Then all that remained was the Lonely.
Poor Peter. He really should have left well enough alone. Or just done what I’d asked in the first place.
Ah well. He knew what I was attempting, and was very unwilling to cooperate until I made him a little wager about Martin.
Of course, he had no way of knowing that, in addition to setting you up for the final mark, he was giving you all the tools you needed to escape from it.
How is Martin, by the way? He looks well. You will keep an eye on him when all this is over, won’t you? He’s earned that.
And there, I think, we are brought just about up to date. I have enjoyed our little trip down memory lane, but past here lies only impatience.
You are prepared. You are ready. You are marked. The power of the Ceaseless Watcher flows through you, and the time of our victory is here.
Don’t worry, Jon. You’ll get used to it here, in the world that we have made.
Now. Repeat after me.
You who watch and know and understand none. You who listen and hear and will not comprehend. You who wait and wait and drink in all that is not yours by right.
Come to us in your wholeness.
Come to us in your perfection.
Bring all that is fear and all that is terror and all that is the awful dread that crawls and chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and leads and dies!
Come to us.
I – OPEN – THE DOOR!
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Hello, John
[AS SOON AS HE BEGINS SPEAKING, A WHIZZING STATIC KICKS IN FROM THE BACKGROUND.]
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)
Apologies for the deception, but I wanted to make sure you started reading, so I thought it best not to announce myself.
I’m assuming you’re alone; you always did prefer to read your statements in private. (slightly strained) I wouldn’t try too hard to stop reading; there’s every likelihood you’ll just hurt yourself. So just listen.
Now, shall we turn the page and try again?
[THE ARCHIVIST MAKES A PAINED COUPLE OF SOUNDS OUT-OF-STATEMENT-CHARACTER, AS IF HE’S TRYING TO TEAR HIMSELF AWAY FROM THE STATEMENT AND PHYSICALLY CANNOT.][WHEN HE PICKS THE STATEMENT BACK UP, THE WORDS SOUND LIKE THEY’RE BEING TORN FROM HIS LIPS.]ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)
Statement of Jonah Magnus regarding Jonathan Sims, The Archivist.
Statement begins.
[A SLAP ON THE TABLE – OR A CRACK? SPOOKY.]
I hope you’ll forgive me the self-indulgence, but I have worked so very hard for this moment, a culmination of two centuries of work. It’s rare that you get the chance to monologue through another, and you can’t tell me you’re not curious.
Why does a man seek to destroy the world?
It’s a simple enough answer: for immortality and power. Uninspired, perhaps, but – my god. The discovery, not simply of the dark and horrible reality of the world in which you live, but that you would quite willingly doom that world and confine the billions in it to an eternity of terror and suffering, all to ensure your own happiness, to place yourself beyond pain and death and fear.
It is an awful thing to know about yourself, but the freedom, John, the freedom of it all. I have dedicated my life to handing the world to these Dread Powers all for my own gain, and I feel… nothing but satisfaction in that choice.
I am to be a king of a ruined world, and I shall never die.
I believe there are far more people in this world that would take that bargain than you would ever guess. And I have beaten all of them.
Of course, this desire did not manifest overnight. When Smirke first gathered our little band – Lukas, Scott, and the rest – to discuss and hypothesize on the nature of the things he had learned from Rayner, I felt what I believe we all felt: curiosity, and fear.
But as he compiled his taxonomy and codified his theories on the grand rituals, I began to develop a very specific concern. Smirke was so obsessed with his ideas on balance, even as our fellows began to experiment and fall to the service of our patrons.
I began to worry that if one of them successfully attempted their ritual, then I would be as much a victim as any, trapped in the nightmare landscape of a twisted world.
At first, I attempted prevention, but the cause seemed hopeless. The only way to ensure I did not suffer the tribulations of what I believed to be an inevitable transformation was to bring it about myself. So what began as an experiment soon became a race.
Beyond that, I was getting older, and mortality began to weigh more heavily on my mind. How much in this world is done because we fear death, the last and greatest terror?
I convinced Smirke to work on Millbank, leading him to design it as a temple to all the Fears in equilibrium, such that my own modifications to the design of the Panopticon went… unremarked.
It. Took. Years, for the dread of the prisoners to fully suffuse the place, and I was an old man before I made my first attempt at the Watcher’s Crown, sat in the center of that colossal eye, the great ring of cells encircling me like a coronet.
It was… flawed, of course, as all Smirke’s rituals were, and none of the inmates survived as the power I attempted to harness shook the building almost to pieces, and the murky swamp upon which the prison was built consumed it.
But it left me a gift: For sat in that watchtower, I could see everything I turned my mind to.
It was a dizzying power, and one I discovered I maintained even as I found vessels to extend my life. Of course, I had to make sure the location was kept under my control while I worked on revising my plans, and so I moved the organization I had founded to assist in my research down to London, and the Institute as you know it was born.
I’ll not bore you with details of my bodies and failures through those intervening years. Suffice to say I kept busy, both planning my own next attempt, and doing my best to stymie those others who tried versions of their own.
Surely my interpretation of the Watcher’s Crown had been incomplete; there had been some element of the ritual I had overlooked.
It was not until I met Gertrude Robinson that things began to really come into focus.
You see, the role of Archivist has been part of the Beholding for as far back as my research can go. This isn’t uncommon for the Powers; most of the beliefs around them are guesswork and fallible human interpretation, but there are certain throughlines and consistencies that can be spotted, regardless of the trappings.
But Gertrude was unlike any other Archivist. She simply did not care about compiling experiences or collecting the fears of others. She was driven to stop those who served the Powers.
More than once I thought she must secretly be of the Hunt – but there was never that sick joy in her, that thrill of predator and prey. She had simply decided that this was her position in life, and went about it with a practicality that even I found disconcerting at times.
I once asked her what drove her, what had started her down that path. She told me the Desolation had killed her cat.
I don’t know if she was joking, and, to be honest, I could never bring myself to look into her mind and find out for sure.
In any case, Gertrude’s ruthless efficiency in derailing and collapsing rituals threw into stark relief a question that had been bothering me for almost a hundred and fifty years: In the whole span of humanity, why had nobody ever succeeded?
Perhaps there were a long line of Gertrude Robinsons throughout history, but I found that hard to credit. Could it be, then, that there was something in the very concept of the rituals that meant they couldn’t succeed?
She was clearly having similar thoughts in that last year, all of which culminated with the People’s Church.
When I saw that she was making no preparations whatsoever to stop it, I realized she was putting into practice a theory, and one she couldn’t afford to be wrong. She was going to wait, and see if the unopposed ritual succeeded, or if it collapsed under its own strain as mine had all those years ago.
Knowing Gertrude, I’m sure she had a backup plan if she had miscalculated – but she had not. The ritual failed. And all at once, I realized what had to be done.
You see, the thing about the Fears is that they can never be truly separated from each other. When does the fear of sudden violence transition into the fear of hunted prey? When does the mask of the Stranger become the deception of the Spiral?
Even those that seem to exist in direct opposition rely on each other for their definition as much as up relies on down.
To try and create a world with only the Buried makes as much sense as trying to conceive a world with only down.
Every ritual tied itself so closely to a single power as to render itself impossible. They could bring their patron close, but never sever it from the others, and eventually it would be violently pulled back into the place next to reality where they dwell.
The solution, then, is simple: A new ritual must be devised which will bring through all the Powers at once. All fourteen, as I had hoped I could complete it before any new powers such as Extinction were able to fully emerge. All under the Eye’s auspices, of course. We mustn’t forget our roots.
And there was only one being that could possibly serve as a lynchpin for this new ritual: The Archivist. A position that had so recently become vacant, thanks to Gertrude’s ill-timed retirement plans.
Because the thing about the Archivist is that – well, it’s a bit of a misnomer.
It might, perhaps, be better named: The Archive.
Because you do not administer and preserve the records of fear, John. You are a record of fear, both in mind as you walk the shuddering record of each statement, and in body as the Powers each leave their mark upon you.
You are a living chronicle of terror.
Perhaps, then, if I could find an Archivist and have each Power mark them, have them confront each one and each in turn instill in them a powerful and acute fear for their life, they could be turned into a conduit for the coming of this – nightmare kingdom.
Do you see where I’m going, John?
It does tickle me, that in this world of would-be occult dynasties and ageless monsters, the Chosen One is simply that – someone I chose. It’s not in your blood, or your soul, or your destiny. It’s just in your own, rotten luck.
[THUNDERCLAPS.]
I’ll admit, my options were somewhat limited, but My God, when you came to me already marked by the Web, I knew it had to be you. I even held out some small hope you had been sent by the Spider as some sort of implicit blessing on the whole project, and, do you know what, I think it was.
Of course, I had to bide my time, get a measure of you before I began to push, learn how you worked – So I decided I would wait until something came for you, and see how you reacted. Attacks upon the Archives were not uncommon during Gertrude’s tenure, and, while she was always prepared, I made sure you would not be.
I reasoned if you couldn’t survive a single encounter, you were unlikely to make it through all fourteen. So, when Jane Prentiss attacked, I watched eagerly, one hand on the gas release from the start.
You acquitted yourself well enough, so I decided to see how far you would get, though I waited until the worms were in you before I pulled the lever. I needed to make sure you felt that fear all the way to your bones.
The discovery that one of the Stranger’s minions had infiltrated the Institute in the aftermath was certainly a pleasant bonus. Even if that sliver of paranoia, that vague wrongness you couldn’t quite place wouldn’t count as a mark, it was only a matter of time before it confronted you in a far more direct and affecting matter.
Admittedly, given the advent of the Unknowing, I needn’t have bothered. But what’s the old saying about hindsight?
More important to me was Sasha’s encounter with the Distortion. If it had taken an interest, then I very much wanted it to cross your path.
[THUNDER CONTINUES AS HE GOES ON.]
So I found one of its current victims and convinced her to make a statement.
Poor Helen. I actually had to put her in a taxi myself, she was getting so lost in those narrow London side streets.
It worked, though.
[SOMETHING CREAKS. ANOTHER LOUD SNAP/CRACKLE.]
Between the stabbing and at least two desperate flights into its doors – you’re marked very deeply by the Spiral.
Jurgen Leitner was a surprise, of course, and I was forced to improvise. I had no idea how much Gertrude would have told him, and he could very easily have derailed everything if you learned too much too fast.
I… justified it to myself saying I was going to have to send you out into the world anyway, if you were to encounter more of the Powers, but I can’t honestly pretend it wasn’t a… rather rash move.
Still. I’d requested Detective Tonner be assigned to the case when they found Gertrude’s body in the hope that having a Hunter in the mix would eventually lead to a confrontation, and setting you up as a killer certainly hastened that.
Then it was just a matter of feeding you statements to lead you to a few Avatars I thought were likely to harm you – but probably would stop short of actually killing you.
Jude served her purpose exactly as I had hoped, as did our dearly departed Mr. Crew, marking you for the Desolation and the Vast.
Honestly, I had – nothing to do with Melanie and her Slaughter adventure, but when I saw the situation, I made sure to trap her here, so when her rage bubbled over you would be right there, a ready target.
I didn’t foresee the mark coming from surgery gone wrong, but it was a very pleasant surprise.
The Unknowing was a distraction, but not an unwelcome one. For this to work, you needed more than just the marks; you needed power. And that was something the Unknowing served to test, though it posed no actual danger in the grand scheme of things.
And it did serve another purpose, of course. It inadvertently pushed you to confront death, a mark I had been very worried about trying to orchestrate. If I tried too early, you’d just die. Too late, and you might be powerful enough to see the attempt coming, and maybe even understand why.
As it was, it was just right, and once again, you came through with flying colors.
By this point, your abilities were coming along in leaps and bounds, and I was concerned that meeting face-to-face might end up with you – (sigh) – Knowing something you shouldn’t.
I had initially planned to go into hiding, but when your colleagues surprised me with the police, well. It was simple enough to cut a deal.
All that remained, then, were the Dark, the Flesh, the Buried, and the Lonely.
I was a little put out when that idiot Jared Hopworth misinterpreted my letters and attacked the Institute too soon, before you were even out of the hospital, but then – Ho, you should have see my face when you voluntarily went to him.
I couldn’t see what happened in there, of course, but given how you came out, I’m very sure it counts as a mark.
I suspected the coffin might turn up again, and once it did, it was simply a matter of getting any, uh… restraining factors you might have had flying off on a wild goose chase, and waiting.
Honestly, Detective Tonner has been proving invaluable through this process. I’d been racking my brains for months about what I could use to lure you in.
And, of course, I knew the Dark Sun was just sitting there waiting. So when it came time, I just whipped up another apocalypse and sent you on your merry way.
Then all that remained was the Lonely.
Poor Peter. He really should have left well enough alone. (cruel laugh) Or just done what I’d asked in the first place.
Ah well. He knew what I was attempting, and was very unwilling to cooperate until I made him a little wager about Martin.
Of course, he had no way of knowing that, in addition to setting you up for the final mark, he was giving you all the tools you needed to escape from it.
How is Martin, by the way? He looks well. You will keep an eye on him when all this is over, won’t you? He’s earned that.
And there, I think, we are brought just about up to date. I have enjoyed our little trip down memory lane, but past here lies only impatience.
You are prepared. You are ready. You are marked. The power of the Ceaseless Watcher flows through you, and the time of our victory is here.
Don’t worry, John. You’ll get used to it here, in the world that we have made.
Now. (cruel, cruel laugh) Repeat after me.
[WHEN THE ARCHIVIST BEGINS TO READ THE INCANTATION, A HEAVY, DENSE STATIC RETURNS AND BEGINS TO BUILD, ADDING IN HIGHER PITCHES AS IT DOES SO.]
You who watch and know and understand none. You who listen and hear and will not comprehend. You who wait and wait and drink in all that is not yours by right.
Come to us in your wholeness.
Come to us in your perfection.
Bring all that is fear and all that is terror and all that is the awful dread that crawls and chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and bleeds and dies!
Come to us.
I – OPEN – THE DOOR!
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Hi. Sorry if this is a bit long, I would totally understand if you don't want to respond to this. So, I live in a very religious country, questions are immoral and we must follow said religion dearly or else. I have only recently begun reading about atheism and so far I feel my beliefs in religion are falling apart. I am no longer convinced of the religion, I am not sure sure if there is a god but i no longer care. However, there is one argument for religion that I just can't seem to respond to that is how do we get a sense of purpose and have a (objective) value system without religion. Without religion, we start lacking purpose because life doesn't matter and when we die nothing happens, so what's the point? With religion however, there is a sense that we were created by a god, who created us for an important reason and it's our purpose to discover that destiny and fulfill it. And without religion, we have no objective set of values, we merely rely on a subject ever changing world view. Like say with lgbt rights. I could say that everyone should do what they want as long as they are not harming others or themselves and that's why I believe that lgbt people should do whatever they want. But, someone might view it as harmful to others or the people in said relationships. So our values are subjective. With religion however, we can just refer to the rule book and that's it. While multiple religions have different set of values, they can still help communities agree on their values. So my question, in a world that lacks religion, how can we have consistent morals and identify our sense of purpose and reason for existence. Thank you.
Anon, thank you for sharing your experience and thoughts with me. I appreciate when anyone seeks my opinion. Thank you.
You’ve brought up some important topics that many people struggle with. As you have said, I’ve heard many people say that confusion in these areas are most responsible for them being unsure of what they believe. Hopefully after this post you’ll gain some clarity and be able to make a new assessment.
What is Our Purpose?
I often hear from people that a sense of purpose is their main reason for sticking with religion, even when they have doubts. The religious often flaunt their idea of purpose as an unmatched quality only they can provide. So here is a different way of approaching this question.
When a religious person asks me how to know their purpose, I first point out that they are assuming that we are meant to have a purpose or that an objective purpose is a requirement of life. Many people try to figure out life through the lens of what is meant to happen, but I believe this is misguided. We think this way because our minds seek order and finite understanding of the world around us. Therefore, we assume that we must be meant to do something.
However, I submit the cold reality of our existence. We are the results of millions of years of evolutionary change on 1 planet out of many, many trillions. Our form of life does not have any objective purpose, because our creation was not planned or orchestrated. This is an idea religious people have a hard time grasping. That what exists was not crafted, constructed, or produced from a greater mind. All evidence points the fact that we are the result of trillions of random occurrences over billions of years.
If you let go of the assumption that we were purposefully created, then you can let go of the idea that we require an objective purpose. After all, the idea that were created by an intelligent force has no evidence to support that view. There is no evidence to support the existence of a god. There is no evidence to support the idea that we innately have purpose.
This is not a bad thing. Many people often dive immediately into the lake of hopelessness, saying that nothing matters without purpose. I reject this idea entirely. It is short sighted to say that if my life is not eternal then nothing I do matters. A nihilist says this while existing in a world wide society of billions of people where we see, feel, and know pain and happiness by our actions and the actions of others. We are all aware of well documented history where single figures have had profound world changing effects for good and evil. To put it simply, every action has a consequence, and regardless of how you feel about that consequence, since it undeniably miniscule to profound effects on others that live, it cannot be said that it does not matter. Not when we are creatures of wants, needs, and desires. No, to say that our actions don’t matter is an absurdity.
Where Do We Get Our Values?
I say that your actions matter for the fact that they have consequence. But how do we know what is right and wrong, or what those terms even mean without an objective guide?
I have a few things to say on this topic. The first is that the Bible or Quran do not actually set objective morals. Without getting into too much detail, we must recognize major contradictions in the holy books. Rules are set, such as thou shall not kill, but the rules are also broken very quickly and without remorse. Both God/Allah kills and murders on a whim, and on a mass scale. Both God/Allah instruct their followers to kill and slaughter. The morals given by these holy books are purely subjective because they only apply when they say they apply. For instance, rules against not enslaving your neighbors meant exactly that, don’t enslave other Jews, but you can enslave others.
More importantly, these morals change and progress over time as society challenges the old ideas and ushers in new thinking. No Christians or Muslims live under the exact moral law as set down at the dawn of the religions. ISIS is an example of an attempt to do so. So these religious morals are not actually accepted as objective by the people.
Second, religion only claims that their morals are object and cannot prove this claim. It takes very little critical thinking to know that one would rather live in America under secular law than any location in 12th Century Europe when religion controlled laws and morals virtually 100%. Every religion has a different set of morals that they claim is objective, yet none can show themselves to be better than another. More importantly, none can show themselves to be as moral as what secular philosophy has produced, which gives the Western world freedom and liberty like the world has never seen.
As for the idea that it would be easier to follow a “rule book” whether that be the Bible, the Quran, or the teaching of Buddha the same could be said for any other moral philosophy. Society would be simple if we committed ourselves to Utilitarianism completely, but we cannot say it would be better. Our experience across the globe has bore out the simple truth that adopting eclectic laws in an environment where they can always be challenged and improved on is the best model the world has ever seen. There are still theocracies in the world and millions of people from around the globe do not flood to immigrate there.
Not All Opinions Are Equal
Once we remove the idea of objective morality, people often go straight to the idea that nothing can be determined because there will always be differences of opinion. They think that without objectivity set by a higher power that no idea can be proven wrong. This is just not true. There is a universal prohibition against murder. Regardless of the fact that some people find it acceptable, by virtue of intellect and practical application it is undeniable that forbidding murder is the best choice for all societies.
Here we take our first steps toward a new idea of objectivity. Ideas are not objective because of their source, but rather by their merit and application. Universal agreement is not required for an idea to be objectively true. For instance, many people believe the world is flat, but this is objectively false. Morals work the same way. Murder is objectively wrong, but there are still criminals that take it up for sport or work. The fact that someone is too ignorant to see a truth does not mean it is not true.
Let’s look at the issue of lgbtq people specifically. I wrote another post explaining why the American medical community ended its stance that homosexuality was a mental illness. For much of the 20th century in America, homosexuality was considered to be an illness and a moral wrong. This changed when the American Psychological Association actually started researching homosexuality and could not show any evidence that it caused harm of any kind.
What if someone says that being gay is harmful to the person? Well, since we’ve found no justification for this, such a person is left with this argument. Homosexuality is bad, and therefore homosexuality is harmful because it’s bad, and it’s bad because it’s harmful. This is a perfect example of circular reasoning.
While it is not always easy to tell who is right or wrong in a debate, we have developed knowledge of faulty arguments such as circular reasoning, and we know objectively that they are not valid. No matter how many people do not understand this or refuse to accept this is irrelevant. Circular reasoning will never prove anything, no matter how emotionally charge people are over the issue.
Conclusion
I hope that you take some time to think about these ideas and apply them to the questions you’re wondering about. In short, I believe that religion attempts to create a false need in the mind of society to confirm itself as the answer. We are fully capable of living full, productive, and moral lives without religion in our life or society in anyway.
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Hey so I’m sure you get like a billion asks about it but can I just say I looove your Mermaid AU? Like Hot Damn, it’s so fun, and your art’s incredible!!! I really like how you played into Mermaids being naive/gullible, especially with Luffy being naive/gullible. I also enjoy the fact that Luffy’s still strong in this AU. Like, still just as kickass as in canon, it’s just that people are way more willing to trick her into being caught rather than to fight her, which, is the best way to (1/?)
WOW! Thank you so much for sending these asks, they were a joy to read, I’m so happy you like this AU!!
Just a general thing first but: Please don’t EVER assume I get a ton of asks, or don’t want to hear from any of you reading this!!! I’ve been blessed by having so many kind folks stopping by my ask box recently, but usually I get nothing, dead silence, and it’s legit been years since I’ve had more than a handful of asks ;_;
I am ALWAYS happy to hear from you, I am ALWAYS happy to see you have questions, I will NEVER be annoyed or think you’re over asking! If something has already been asked before, I might redirect to a previous answer, or if it’s a spoiler/something I’m working on, I might tell you that, but I don’t expect anyone to have gone through all my asks (heck I forget what I answered sometimes ^ ^;), and again, just knowing there’s interest and that you’ve thought about my content means so much, and questions of any kind definitely do that! I might take a few days to answer bc I don’t want to bother anyone by spamming my dash, but please don’t ever think I’ve ignored or don’t want to see your asks <3
(and if you have a lot of questions that might want longer, thought out answers, it’s absolutely okay to send multiple asks! Like if one person sends 10 separate asks with 10 separate questions, I’m ecstatic! I might take some time answering and not answer them all at once, but don’t ever think I’ll be anything but overjoyed!)
Now to answer the things you’ve mentioned in these asks:
I don’t necessarily think mermaids are naive/gullible in general, but Luffy definitely is, both in canon and in this AU, and yup, as you’ve pointed out, she’s a much more attractive target due to being 1) a girl, 2) a mer. I thought it’d be an interesting combo!
Altho, lemme be honest with you here: that isn’t the main reason why Lu’s a girl in this AU. The main reason is simply because I suddenly wanted to draw Boobs, and realized that in all my many past fandoms, I very rarely draw boobs. I think ladies are awesome, just my fav charas/ships tend to focus on guys, so not much opportunity ^ ^; So I thought it’d just be fun to give myself an excuse to practice, ye know? And the only reason why everyone else isn’t also genderbent so it’s ladies everywhere, is bc well, I still really enjoy drawing muscley dudes too ^ ^; I apologize if it seems a bit “het” (tho tbh, Luffy doesn’t really read as particularly gendered to me either way), but really I just wanted to draw both boobs and moobs if that makes sense >.>;;; it ain’t that deep lmao
The ENTIRE crew is hyper protective, this AU’s defs got a lotta Everyone Loving Lu! It’s defs ASL and specifically AceLu centric especially at first, and yes he’s very protective and has every reason to be ^ ^; Sabo will also definitely be HYPER overprotective (especially given the situation he finds her in...), and the rest of the crew gets increasingly protective too. The original straw hats (yes they’re all eventually recruited) obviously so, but I’m also really excited to think about the potential of Thatch and Deuce in the crew. I’ve already shared some long rambly thoughts on Patreon, hoping they can make it to comic form one day haha!
Shanks absolutely did not know that Luffy’s a girl, and Mihawk absolutely figures it out, and casually lets slip when he visits. Let’s say that Shanks being shocked is an understatement (and wouldn’t it be hilarious if Ben already suspected but decided not to say anything), and may or may not have tried to immediately go see for himself......
As for Luffy’s wanted poster...you’ll see ^ ^;
Thanks so much for coming by to talk to me!!! My askbox is always open if you ever have any more questions, or just want to come chat or say hi or anything <3
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Late Night Calls (MM Preferences)
Yoosung
Yoosung usually stayed up pretty late playing LOLOL with his guild friends. It annoyed you at times, but you stayed up until he was finished so you guys could chat about how your day went. Right on time, you heard the buzzing of your phone and instantly picked up.
"Hey M/C I just caught the most rare boss monster in the game!!" You smirked because he says every monster is a rare boss monster. You think it was his attempt to impress you.
"Is that right? I knew you could do it! That's my brave warrior," you cooed back at him feeding his ego. His giggle echoed through the phone and played like music in your ears.
"I want you here to play with me. It isn't as fun without you by my side cheering for me. You help me play better." His words made your heart melt. "Can you come over tomorrow? I don't have classes." You nodded vigorously until you realized he couldn't hear you and was still awaiting your response.
"Of course, cutie. Wouldn't miss it for the world." His excited giggles pierced your ears again. Yoosung wasn't much of a casanova or a super good sweet-talker like Zen, but he always found ways to make you feel needed and special.
"I should probably go. I gotta make a snack run to stock up for you tomorrow. I'll go to Seven's and beg him for some Honey Buddha Chips since we both like them."
"You'd share those precious chips with me?" you giggled knowing this was a high compliment coming from Yoosung, "You're total husband material." You could feel him blushing and he tried to comment back, but his stutter got in the way and you couldn't understand him.
"I gotta go now, bye!" the awkward but adorable baby hung up. You smiled with excited thoughts about what was to come tomorrow.
Zen
Zen had some late rehearsals this week. His got his desired role in a new movie called Killer Clowns where he played the main clown. You thought it was creepy and stupid, but he saw it as an opportunity to practice and get out there. Plus, he wasn't used to doing darker horror movies, so it was a good opportunity all around. The downfall of that was, you didn't talk to your boyfriend at all until the late hours of the night. You HATED the drowsy conversations because he was always half-asleep and could never hold a decent conversation. You dealt with it though knowing that this role was important to him. He was a couple minutes later calling than usual, so you decided to dial his number. After a few rings, he picked up.
"Hey babe my beautiful girlfriend/boyfriend. How was your day." His voice was husky and deep and sounded like you just woke him up.
"I'm sorry honey, were you sleeping?" You felt bad knowing that he was constantly exhausted from working.
"I know I haven't been the best boyfriend recently. I would hate if you did this to me too. I just want to prove to you that I am hard-working and I want to make enough money for me to support both of us. So if doing this role can provide some of that, I need to do it," he stated reading your mind.
"I don't hate it, we just don't feel as close as we usually do. I'm missing you more and more each day. I already know you're hard-working honey, you don't need to prove it to me. I am already so insanely proud of you." You tried to raise his spirits since you knew he felt guilty about how little he was talking to you recently.
"That's so like you. Reading my mind knowing exactly what I need to hear. I miss you more than you miss me. I have a billion pictures of you hanging up in my dressing room. I promise after this is all over, I will make it up to you. I would do anything to hold your beautiful face in my hands and give you everything you want and desire. I will be with you soon my love i promise. You know you're the best cheerleader and your support means everything to me. I am forever greatful."
His kind words warmed your heart and made you feel like your sacrifices were being noticed and appreciated. You started to talk again, but his snores cut you off. You decided to let him sleep. You muttered an I love you before heading off to bed.
Jaehee
Bless this girl's soul, she works so much she's been coming home from the office way past normal buisness hours. However, she always made sure she called you before heading off to bed. Never late, she called you at the exact same minute on the dot everyday. Your phone rang and you jumped onto your bed to answer it.
"Hello M/C. How has your day been?" She began the conversation.
"I'm worried about you. All this work can't be healthy and I'm afraid it's going to start taking a toll on you." You didn't answer her question and got straight to the point you wanted to discuss with her.
"I know, but Mr. Han asked and I must listen to him."
"I know you get paid a decent amount, but Jaehee, you could work literally anywhere else and be respected more than you are there."
"I need the money in order for you to move in with me and for me to be able to support us comfortably. I hope you can see that my sacrifices are for the better."
"Jaehee, I don't care about the money. I care about your happiness and well-being above all else. I know you'd feel the same if the roles were reversed." She paused for a moment and didn't answer.
"My love, I am exhausted, but I do understand your point of view. How about we get coffee tomorrow and discuss alternatives. I am not trying to end our conversation short, I simply want to be fully awake when we do discuss this since it is an important matter."
"Yes, that would be lovely." You smiled excited to see the love of your life tomorrow.
"Thank you for always worrying about me and caring about me more than I care about myself. You've been a huge help in my life and I hope one day I will be able to show you how much all your actions helped me."
"Goodnight, Jaehee."
"Goodnight, M/C. I love you."
Jumin
His dad keeps throwing more and more responsiblity at him in the company. You could tell Jumin was stressed, but he never conveyed it. It started out slow, him coming home an hour later, then two hours later, then three. Soon enough, you didn't get to talk to the cooperate heir until the early hours in the morning before he got his few hours sleep before doing it all over again. Jumin told you multiple times not to stay up and wait for him to call since it would be a waste for both of you to lose sleep. However, you still stayed up and called him every night knowing that he secretly appreciated the light conversations you shared.
"Jumin! I missed you!" You decided not to prompt him on work since you could tell he didn't want to talk about it.
"I missed you too M/C. My day was slightly better than usual since my cook decided to create your favorite dish. It reminded me of you and brought a smile to my face."
"Jumin, I know this might not be socially right for me to ask this but, can I come stay with you for a bit? It's very upsetting not being able to stay with you and I think if I were to be at your side for a little more of the day, it could go faster for the both of us." You were nervous to hear his reply. There was a long silence between you two and you became fearful that you said something wrong. He hung up and your fears grew worse. After a couple minutes, he called back.
"Forgive me for that. I have completed the arrangements to have you come over. Assistant Kang will send a car for you tomorrow at 6 AM. I hope you can forgive me on the early hours, I was being greedy and wanted to see you as soon as I wake up. I have alerted the staff that you will be moving in with me."
"Moving in?" You didn't remember asking that.
"Yes, I understand that you only asked to spend some time with me, however regarding my feelings towards you, I feel like having you by my side constantly will enhance my mood even more drastically. If you object, please let me know." He sounded confident, but you knew he was scared that you would say no.
"Of course I'd love to move in with you. I do have one request though."
"Anything."
"Tell the cook not to make breakfast. I want to cook with you in the morning before you head off to work. It'll give us some time to hang out before you have to leave." You could hear the smirk in his voice.
"Well, then I have to make a request also."
"Yes?"
"You have to sleep the night in bed with me"
"Is there a specific reason you're requesting this?" You questioned curious to hear his response. You smiled to yourself becoming excited about your life to come.
"Because I am being selfish yet again. I feel my sleeping will improve with you laying between my arms. You make me feel comfortable and put me at peace." His compliment made your cheeks blush.
"I love you, dork."
"I love you too, M/C."
Seven
The Defender of Justice? Getting no sleep? That's all he ever talks about. He tries to joke about it playing it off like it's his duty to protect the justice, but in reality, he misses you more than you can possibly imagine. All his work has been piling up more and more recently and it makes his head spin. All he wants to do is hold you and make jokes and tease Yoosung. But, he can't and it depresses him. He still tried his best to call and keep in touch with you. He watched you constantly on the CCTV, but he knew it wasn't enough for either of you. Sometimes, he'd call every day for a week. Other times, he called once every two weeks. His irregular schedule also stressed you out, but you knew it wasn't going to change so you tried to cope. Today, you were surprised to hear your phone ringing.
"Drum roll please!" He began. You made a drum sound with your mouth, playing along with his little game. "I, 707, the brave defender of internet justice, just put off work yet again to come rescue the princess from her/his sheer boredom!"
"Awww!! My hero!" you cooed back at him.
"If you want to better show your love and affection, blow a big ol' kiss to the security camera outside your door!" You jogged outside, the cold air nipping at your skin. You got on your tip toes and delievered a kiss to your boyfriend. Virtually at least.
"Kyahhhhhhh! Cuteness overload!!! Can't take much more. Going to implode." Seven overexaggerated. You made a mwah sound and he totally lost it.
"Program 707 has stopped working. Over heating. Lack of ventilation. Pure nosebleed central. Please restart by saying the words, Seven! I love you!"
"Seven! I love you!" You giggled while saying it.
"Ahhhhh. My darling 606 has resurrected me. So my little kitten, how was your day today?"
"The usual. Thinking about you. Looking at pictures of you. Wondering how you look so hot in LOLOL cosplay." You knew you were making him blush almost as hard as he made you blush earlier. Your relationship was filled with playful flirting and you loved it.
"Seven," you started back up again being more serious this time, "are you okay? Like, are you safe? You've been getting worse recently and I hate seeing you lose yourself. I need you here, however selfish that may be."
"I know I've been sucky recently, but everyone is counting on me. And would I be your knight in shining armor if I let you and others down? I love you my little shortcake and I am working hard so that this torture will be over for you soon enough."
His attempt at reassuring you was sufficient for now, but you made a mental note to finish talking to him about this later.
"I'll let you get some rest twerp. You know I love you right?"
"Yes, M/C. I love you too my sexy little kitten. I'll try my best to call you tomorrow okay?"
"Don't make promises you can't keep. You won't defend the promise justice that way and I'd have to strip you of your title."
"That would be the ultimate KO for me!! Unimaginable damage! I will call you tomorrow. I love you." And with that, he hung up and you returned to day dreaming about going to a space station with a certain red-headed male.
#hyun ryu#mm seven#saeyoung choi#mm jumin#jumin x mc#jumin han#seven x mc#yoosung kim#mm yoosung#yoosung x mc#zen#zen x mc#zen x reader#jaehee kang#mysme 707#mysme yoosung#mysme zen#mysme#mystic messenger#mystic messenger imagines#mystic messenger preferences#jumin preferences
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How to Stay Positive and Happy in Life
New Post has been published on http://bit.ly/352WWcA
How to Stay Positive and Happy in Life
How to Stay Positive and Happy in Life
Today we’re going to talk about how to stay positive and happy in life and why that is important. Why do we need to be happy and positive all the time? Well, let’s have a discussion and see why it’s going to do massive things for your life. Today, we’re talking about how to stay positive and happy in life.
Thank you for stopping by!
Now, this is a pretty broad topic. First and foremost, I love that you’re here because if you’re here, that means that you’re looking for more happiness than you currently have.
It also means that you’re looking for something that will satisfy the long-term instead of just short-term.
We were put on this planet to experience what happiness feels like. I believe there’s a master plan, and that master plan includes me being happy and includes you being happy.
So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of what creates long-term happiness in our worlds and how to stay positive and happy in life.
Get rid of inadequate words
The first thing that I do to create happiness is to get rid of my inadequate words. Now you could really think about as asterisk words that you see online.
Think about all the ones that get bleeped out of all the movies, I really like getting rid of those ones too, I’m not typically the swearing type.
Still, I’m talking about the other bad words, wrong words like can’t or don’t or not enough.
My favorite bad word to get rid of is should. Why is that a bad word in my vocabulary? Why is that a bad word? It should mean I want something to be other than it already is.
Even worse, if you’re thinking about it past tense, should have is, I want something to be different that I can’t also change because it’s already happened.
It’s in the past, so here’s my philosophy. Don’t should on yourself or anybody else, it gets messy, it gets stinky, and nobody likes it.
Here’s why. If something you feel is happening in a row, should be different, I’m actually going to call that into question. How do I know that it shouldn’t be any different than it is?
Well, simply put because it’s not. If I’m putting a should on something present, past or future, if it’s a should on the future, take away this should and make it a choice.
For example, if you think I should lose a lot of weight, that’s really disempowering, isn’t it? It’s taking away your ability to choose so instead of should in the future, replace the word should with choose.
So I choose to release a lot of weight, I want to be healthy, not I should. It’s a choice. If it’s a should about the present like, I should not do that, or someone else for that matter should not be doing that. Is it really a matter of whether they should or shouldn’t be, and it doesn’t make any difference anyhow. Clearly, they’re doing what they’re doing, not what they should or shouldn’t be doing.
We get to love and accept things as they are. A book called Loving What Is is a book I’m going to recommend to you, it’s a fantastic book about taking our circumstances and making the best from it. So don’t should in the present tense either because what’s going on is what’s going on.
It’s up to you to say, I’m going to have a fantastic perspective on this. What about shooting on your past? That makes even less sense, we can’t shoot on our history because there’s nothing we can do about it.
I can’t say I should have done XYZ. All I can say is, in the future, given the opportunity, here’s what I choose to do. So don’t should on your past and don’t shoot on yourself. Don’t should anyone else in your present and definitely don’t should on your future, it’s not right for you, it’s a bad word in my vocabulary.
Another bad word in my dictionary is something that if you ever hear me say it, feel free to give me a proverbial kick in the ass. “I don’t know.” It drives me crazy when people say I don’t know, even more, mad when I say I don’t know.
When I say I don’t know, here’s what’s going on in my brain. If I’ve got a question, I need an answer. I put I don’t know in the middle, it completely cuts off my ability to find the solution. So when I’m looking for an answer, and I put I don’t know in there, in my brain, it shuts down.
I’m giving instructions to my brain all the time. If I say I don’t know, all the little messengers in my mind are like, oh hang on, wait, guys, he says he doesn’t know so don’t look, don’t look for the answer because he just told us that he doesn’t know. That’s messed up.
Of course, we know, and if we really genuinely don’t know, we can find out. We can do what you’re doing today and go look for the answers.
We can go look for how to find happiness in our lives. We can go look for how to generate that goal. We can go look for the solution. Maybe I don’t know is not in your brain, but I know how to find out.
So I’m going to challenge you this. Get rid of those bad words. Get free of “I don’t know,” “should” and get rid of those ideas that disempower you. Every time you’re tempted to say I don’t know, say, “I always find the answers.”
Or say, “I know someone who does.” Say, “I know how to find out” or “I actually do know, let me think for just a moment.” Every time you’re thinking I want to do a should thing, should on myself, should on someone else, think about taking your power back and saying I choose to.
I respect that, or that happened, and in the future, I want to. Make sure that you’re cleaning up your vocabulary because your happiness doesn’t come from external forces.
And again, this may sound cliche, you can’t buy happiness, happiness doesn’t come from anywhere else outside of you. I was watching Trolls with my daughter.
One of my favorite things about that movie is when the king is sitting down with this little troll. He’s going to eat the source of happiness, and all of their kingdoms is eating this.
Well that’s such a message for emotional eating right, is I need to eat something to be happy, I need to have happiness coming from something outside of me.
One of my favorite moments is when the king is faced with that, and the little troll says, you know, you’re happy now, aren’t you?
You found happiness in your heart and that happiness is magnified when you’re with someone else that helped you find that happiness in your heart.
You didn’t need to bring in any exterior forces to experience happiness. Know that satisfaction is not something that happens to you. Write that down.
Happiness is never something that happens to you, satisfaction is always a choice. You get to choose whatever emotion you feel needs to be expressed at that moment.
Satisfaction is simply a choice. So when you’re ready, let go of whatever emotion is stealing your happiness, feel it to its full existence. If you need to handle grief in a moment, allow that to exist.
If you need to feel sadness at any specific moment, just let yourself think that. Maybe you’ve heard this phrase “walking through the valley of the shadow of death.”
Perhaps you’ve read that, or maybe you’ve heard that somewhere. I love hearing that because it’s walking through, not setting up camp and unpacking your bags and hanging out there.
It’s a progress, it’s a progression in the process of passing through whatever in your world isn’t working for you. But just know that whenever you’re ready to be done with whatever negative emotions coming out for you, that you have full permission given to you by you to step into joy and to step into happiness.
You are enough!
I want to bring up something that’s really really important to mean that’s very, very sensitive to me.
This idea that we are not enough, that idea can steal our happiness away so easily. This idea that I’m not good enough or I’m not thin enough, or I’m not rich enough, or I’m not smart enough, or I’m not tall enough or short enough, or whatever it is, you fill in the blank.
This idea of I am not enough can really sabotage. Try shifting that into I am enough, I am enough to achieve my goals, I have what it takes because there’s a counterfeit we’re at work here.
Follow my lead on this one because if you can wrap your head around this, your mind will be blown just like mine was. First of all, are we alone on this planet?
The total trick question here. No, we’re not, it’s obvious we’re not. We’ve got 7.5 billion people on this planet, we’re not meant to go through life alone, we’re meant to have help.
Asking for help, reaching out for help takes us away from that lonely place of solitude and solidarity. It allows us to step into a higher consciousness and a higher thinking level.
We’re asking for help for someone to come in and give us a perspective that we may not have already.
Now think about this, if we really feel that we’re not enough, we can take that in one of two ways. We can make it with pride and say, you know, I’m not enough, and by the way, to my satisfaction and shame are the same thing.
Pride says I’m better than someone else, shame says I’m worse than someone else. So I can take it with the pride and shame scenario.
Intentions are the cornerstones to creating your reality folks. And every part of your life deserves at least one! Here is mine for my well-being emotionally:
I’m not enough and feel all down about it and poopoo on myself and should on myself and all of these things. Or I can step into, you know what, I’m worth it, I am enough.
I intend to live in the now and feel greater and greater depths of love, fun, joy, happiness, ecstasy, compassion and caring for myself and others; to have fun continuously, and to open (more every day) to my creativity, psychic abilities and passion.
Live a Life You Love
So we can go from I’m not enough down here to I’m worth it, and I am enough, but did you know there’s a higher level, an even higher level than that?
It may sound counterintuitive, but the higher level is actually, I know I’m not enough. Wait for a second! What? Didn’t you say that with the lowest base one? Follow my lead on this.
We go from, oh shame base, I’m not enough, I’ll never be good enough blah blah blah yucky yucky yucky, all the way up to I am enough, I’m good enough, I know I can do this.
The next level is, I know I’m not supposed to do this on my own. I don’t have anything. I need to do this on my own, and I get to do it with someone else.
I get to ask for help, I have never met any single person that’s been successful on this planet who got to success on their own, I don’t think they exist.
Every pattern for success I have ever seen says I recognize that. At one point, I felt horrible about not being enough, and then I got to the point where I thought that I could do it and that I am empowered.
Then I got to the point where I said, you know what, I can’t do it on my own, I don’t have enough of what it takes to do it on my own, but I know where to find the answers.
Happiness lies within you, and once you have had within you, you can connect satisfaction to everyone around you by asking for help.
Asking for help is one of the healthiest, most humbling things that you can do to get where you need to go, and it’s like hitting the fast forward button.
If you want a bonus to finding happiness, happiness is spelled G-R-A-T-E-F-U-L, happiness is spelled grateful. Expressing gratitude in every moment, especially the moments where you don’t feel like being grateful applies, it gets you to a place where you can experience gratitude.
Love yourself
If I told you my life story, you would hear me say that the worst things that happened to me are the most grateful moments. I’m so thankful that those things happened to me because I am who I am.
Now try seeing that on, try saying that try that phrase on. I love who I am. The person I am today is because of the experiences I’ve had in my life. I am grateful to be the person I am.
I’m grateful for the challenges, they made me stronger. I’m thankful for the hiccups because they put me in place to be open and to be humble and to be teachable and to be able to offer something of like commiserating or understanding others.
If you can drop an ounce of gratitude into every experience in your life, you shift from a low vibration into one of happiness, joy, and it’s as easy as being grateful.
I hope this article has shed some light on how to stay happy and positive in life. If you have any questions, feel free to write them below. Have a blessed day! Check out our article 6 Simple Tips On How to Make Yourself Happy!
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1 THROUGH 55 AND 1 THROUGH 30 GO GO GO
LETS FUCKIN GO
tumblr please actually make this a keep reading
55 interesting questions you should drop in someone’s inbox
1. If you didn’t have to sleep, what would you do with the extra time?
I ALREADY WATCH NETFLIX AND AGONIZE OVER MY STORY
2. What’s your favorite piece of clothing you’ve own/owned?
MY JACKETS. ANY CHEST OBSCURING, BROAD SHOULDERED, COZY JACKET
3. What hobbies would you get into if time and money wasn’t an issue?
DANCING, ID NEED TO GO TO CLASSES OR SOMETHING
4. What would your perfect room look like?
IM ACTUALLY PRETTY HAPPY WITH MY ROOM BUT IVE ALWAYS WANTED A LAVA LAMP, AND 1800 MORE PLANTS COULDNT HURT
5. Do you play sports?
NO
6. What fiction place would you love to go to?
SINNOH REGION
7. What Job would you be terrible at?
DEBT COLLECTION. I WOULD BE GIVING SHIT TO PEOPLE FOR FREE. I COULDNT BEAR BEING ENCOURAGED TO FORCE PEOPLE WHO CANT PAY FOR SOMETHING TO PAY MORE
8. If you could turn any activity into an Olympic sport, what would it be?
SERVING. HOW MANY PLATES CAN YOU CARRY AT ONCE
9. What’s the most annoy habit other people have?
WALKING IN MY SPACE BUBBLE WHEN MY SENSES ARE OVERLOADED
10. What skill would you like to master?
A SECOND LANGUAGE
11. What would be the most amazing adventure to go on?
THE ONE FROM MY DREAM WHERE I KISSED A GIRL DYED MY HAIR BLUE AND WE ELOPED TO BRAZIL TO RAISE SHEEP
12. What’s your favorite drink ?
THAT CHRISTMAS SHIT. PEPPERMINT MOCHA AT STARBUCKS. A FRIEND GOT IT FOR ME ONCE. NOW I ORDER IT A BILLION TIMES.
13. What state or country would you never like to go back to?
I HAVE NOT TRAVELLED MUCH EVER
14. What songs do you have completely memorized?
I DONT REMEMBER LYRICS SO MUCH, BUT I COULD PROBABLY REMEMBER HOW MANY SONGS GO COMPLETELY
15. Are you usually early or late?
LATE. IM GETTING BETTER THOUGH
16. What takes up too much of your time?
GETTING OUT OF BED
17. What do you wish you knew more about?
SWORDS
18. What are some small things that make your day better?
COFFEE. SOMEONE SAYING SOMETHING NICE TO ME.
19. What TV channel doesn’t exist but really should?
QUEER EYE BUT BY TRANS PEOPLE FOR TRANS PEOPLE
20. Who has impressed you the most with what they’ve accomplished?
YOU. AND ME. ITS GROWTH
21. What age do you wish you can permanently be?
21, SO I HAVE TIME TO FIGURE OUT WHAT THE FUCKS GOING ON
22. What TV show or movie do you refuse to watch?
13 REASONS, THE BOOK WAS TRIGGERING SO I WONT RISK IT
23. What would be your ideal way to spend you weekend?
TAKING A WALK, HAVING COFFEE, WATERING PLANTS… IM HAPPY
24. What’s something in your life that’s considered a luxury?
I HAVE PERFUME...
25. Is there anything you’re too young/old for?
TO YOUNG TO NEVER DRINK. TOO OLD FOR POKEMON
26. What’s your favorite genre book or movie?
I DONT HAVE THE ATTENTION SPAN FOR EITHER BUT I SEEM TO LIKE URBAN FANTASY A LOT
27. How often do you people watch?
I THINK IM SO POLITE BUT HONESTLY, I QUIETLY SCRUTINIZE SO MANY PEOPLE ON THE TRAIN EVERY DAY AND GUESS AT THEIR PERSONAL HABITS AND SELF IMAGE.
28. What’s the best single day on the calendar?
MY BIRTHDAY, SAGITTARIUS SEASON RULES BABY
29. What are you interested in that most people haven’t heard of?
I DONT KNOW ABOUT ANYTHING PPL HAVENT HEARD OF BUT IM INTERESTED IN BLACK HOLES
30. Do you relax after a hard day?
FOOD. NETFLIX. DECOMPOSING ON TUMBLR
31. What’s the best book or series you’ve ever read?
I HAVENT READ A BOOK I REALLY LOVE IN AGES. HARRY POTTER AND ARTEMIS FOWL WERE MY FAVOURITES GROWING UP, BUT CORNELIA FUNKES BOOKS SLAPPED AND HIS DARK MATERIALS WAS GORGEOUS
32. Where’s the farthest you’ve ever been from home?
IDAHO?
33. What’s the most heart warming thing you’ve ever seen?
LUCIFER WAS LIKE YOU DESERVE SOMEONE WHO CARES ABOUT YOUR BORING MIDDLE NAME JANE AND KNOWS THAT EVERY MURDER BREAKS YOUR HEART AND YOU SIMPLY DESERVE BETTER SO NO MORE MOMENTS WHILE THEYRE HAVING A MOMENT AND CHLOE IS WATCHING THIS FUCKING IDIOT AND IVE WATCHED THIS BEFORE SO I KNOW SHES GONNA KISS HIM AND THEN THEY KISS
34. What’s the most annoying question that people ask you?
ANY SMALL TALK QUESTIONS
35. Would you give a 40 minute presentation with no preparation?
YES. ID MAKE THAT SHIT RIGHT UP. SKILLS
36. What’s something you think everyone should do at least once in their lives?
GIVE ME A HUG AND SOME CHOCOLATE
37. Would you rather go Hand Gliding or Whitewater rafting?
HANG GLIDING
38. Dream car?
SOMETHING I DONT HAVE TO WORRY WILL FALL INTO PIECES AT ANY MOMENT
39. What’s something so many people are obsessed with and you just don’t understand why?
STRAIGHT LOVE SONGS
40. What are you most looking forward to in 10 years from now?
HAVING A CAT
41. What’s something you’ve been meaning to try but haven’t gotten to it?
DECORATING THE DOLLHOUSE I RESCUED FROM THE BATHROOM
42. What’s the best thing that’s happened to you all week?
IM NOT VERY FAR THROUGH THE WEEK AND I HAVENT ENJOYED MOST OF IT BUT PEOPLE SAYING ADORABLE THINGS
43. How different was your life one year ago?
NOT A LOT DIFFERENT, IM JUST LONELY IN THE CITY NOW, MINUS A TOXIC RELATIONSHIP, ONE YEAR ON T
44. What/who would you rate 10/10?
MY CACTUS JAKEN. I DROPPED HIM SO MANY TIMES AN ENTIRE HALF OF HIS SPIKES ARE FLAT SCARS. AND LOOK AT HIM. THRIVING
45. What kind of art do you enjoy the most?
GENUINELY MADE ART
46. What do you hope never changes?
MY T PRESCRIPTION
47. What movie title best describes your life?
I LOOKED THROUGH NETFLIX AND I PICK TWILIGHT
48. What website do you visit most often?
TUMBLR
49. What’s something you’re looking forward to this year?
MY BIRTHDAY
50. What’s something you’d like to unlearn?
FINDING A REASON TO CANCEL EVERY SINGLE LITTLE THING
51. Where would you spend all your time if you could?
WALKING BY SOME RUNNING WATER
52. What age would you like to live to?
80. THATS MY MENTAL HEALTH ANSWER
53. What’s something you’re most likely to become famous for?
SOMETHING CREATIVE WOULD BE AWESOME
54. What’s something you’re most likely to be arrested for?
CRIMES
55. What’s something you really want but can’t afford?
A CAT
Lgbt+ ask game
What do you identify as and what are your pronouns?
I’m even a little shaken by a questioning state right now but for a while I’ve felt the best fit is the androgynous label -- I read a description of it being the purple on a pink to blue scale, both at once but not specifically either one, and something else by itself. I’m also happy with a cryptic masculine grey area. My pronouns are he/him.
How did you discover your sexuality, tell your story?
During the Puberty 1.0 nightmare, I was basically living someone else’s life, and any attraction I felt wasn’t in relation to myself. I felt disconnected from my body and gender and everything too, and I felt a lot of social pressure to experience a certain type of attraction, fit into a certain role, et cetera, and none of these feelings existed in me at all, so I used to identify as ace. When I realized I was trans, I was too caught up in the, transition safely, my life is a lie, stopping dysphoria drama to focus on this, but I had an idea I might be a gay guy judging from my gay creative writing until I caught feelings for a girl and realized this wasn’t the first time that had happened. Some bi positivity and nonbinary rage later, I am reminded that gender is a joke.
Have you experienced being misgendered? What happened and how did you overcome it?
Yes of course A LOT. Starting with my parents, who do it aggressively and maliciously. And plenty from strangers and customers, mostly after hearing my voice pre-transition. It used to hurt terribly because I was dealing with so much other stuff at the time, and one little thing could be the last straw, so I used to react strongly and harshly, to people you express yourself to anyway. On T, I’ve been so much more chill and confident, and it’s less painful to accept that some people just don’t know any better, although that doesn’t change its effect.
Who was the first person you told, how did they react?
I don’t remember, I think it was a high school friend. I vaguely remember texting someone in a bathroom during a crying session at work. My high school friends were all warm and supportive.
Describe what it was like coming out, what did you feel?
It was scary as hell. I’m sure coming out (with your gender specifically) is scary by nature because it’s a huge truth to be telling that can really change how the people you love perceive you, for better or for worse, but for me, I’m also thinking with the dread and certainty that my family would be too conservative and potentially dangerous. Coming out to my family was one of the worst, most painful things I’ve ever been through -- being kicked out and laughed at, a lot of drama, confrontations, Bible readings and being ganged up on at odd hours, trying to comfort my mom who took it as her personal failure -- I was shaking with adrenaline 24/7. I think of the “I’ll suffer through anything as long as it has meaning” comment that was about angsty fanfics, but knowing the truth about myself was a source of unshakable strength and it felt refreshing and even triumphant to say, like I was giving myself permission to exist for the first time. I came out a bunch of times, though...
If you’re out, how did your parents/guardians/friends react?
My family reacted mostly badly, my sister is a little confused but has the spirit, and my friends have been wonderful.
What is one question you hate people asking about your sexuality?
It’s more of a gender thing, but I hate it when people imply that I shouldn’t be on T or are subtly trying to talk me out of it with their questions. After all the disrespectful as fuck bullshit I heard from my parents, I’m tired of this.
Describe the style of clothing that you most often wear.
Zombie apocalypse denim? Gay Layers
Who are your favourite lgbt+ ships?
I’m not really emotionally invested in these “ships” you cool kids are talking about. I like canon, age-appropriate ones.
What does makeup mean to you? Do you wear any?
I’ve never really worn makeup. I brazenly never bothered to growing up, and if it had an effect on me socially, I was too tuned out to care. My sister always wanted to do my hair and makeup, but I wasn’t interested and wouldn’t let her, much to her frustration. I wore some for a musical once though, and I had no idea what I was doing and it was extremely uncomfortable. I felt what I know now is dysphoria and ended up using the lipstick to draw. Another aspect to this is my family forbade it (or my dad made the decision for everyone), not that it made my sister feel less pressured to wear it, so maybe it was some female presentation I could easily get out of. For that reason, I don’t have super strong feelings about it. Not understanding it probably resulted in me feeling left out a lot among my peers.
Do you experience dysphoria? If so, how does that affect you?
Yes. Before my realization, it was a numb horror I wasn’t consciously aware of, ruining nice things growing up to the point where I feel like I missed out on being a teenager. I remember it as feeling nauseous while sitting in a corner, feeling like none of my clothes ever fit for some mysterious reason. Living with my family in the closet, it defined my life, and I was obsessed with my presentation. These days, it does not bother me on that level at all, except a minor freakout now and then if I get really wild and wear feminine clothes. Or I still feel it in more subtle ways, when I default to customer service voice, or when guys my age are twice my height and I look aaaall the way up at them and wonder what gender they see me as.
What is the stupidest thing you’ve heard said about the lgbt+ community?
Trust me, I have heard truck loads of dumb shit and the winner is the Gay Agenda is R****a’s propaganda to weaken the integrity of North America. Considering what is happening over there, it was enragingly stupid.
What’s your favourite thing about the lgbt+ community?
I feel like I can be myself around lgbt+ people. I don’t feel like I have to hide stuff or put on a show, and I’m not afraid because it’s familiar territory.
What’s your least favourite thing about the lgbt+ community?
Aside from obvious problems like TERFs, ace discourse. Ace people are part of the community if they want to be and that’s enough on that, my skin is already breaking out.
Have you ever been to your cities pride event? Why or why not?
I finally went to a Pride event this year! I was surprised it was the first one I’d been to, then remembered my parents discouraged me from going anywhere, never mind to a gay where.
Who is your favourite lgbt+ Icon/Advocate/Celebrity?
I can’t think of many people right now, but Leslie Feinberg seems awesome, and some quotes from Stone Butch Blues are very validating.
Have you been in a relationship and how did you meet?
No. Technically I have been in one, but it was shitty and ridiculous, and basically platonic, and I don’t want it to count.
What is your favourite lgbt+ book?
I barely read… I read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe in high school and it was honestly so precious.
Have you ever faced discrimination? What happened?
Yes. I got kicked out (but then kicked back in again), had my stuff stolen and damaged, was verbally harassed… and I was indirectly fired by an employer, but We Will Never Know Why...
Your Favorite lgbt+ movie or show?
Queer Eye! I don’t know of many though, and some important ones, I just haven’t watched.
Who are some of your favourite lgbt+ bloggers?
My mutuals :D
Which lgbt+ slur do you want to reclaim?
I’m okay calling myself queer.
Have you ever gone to a gay bar, or a drag show, how was it?
No, but I did see some drag performances at the one (1) Pride event I went to, and they were jaw-dropping.
How do you self-identify your gender, and what does that mean to you?
I’m not sure what this question means, but I decide what fits right by what makes me feel the most alive and emotionally real and in the moment. What makes me feel the most attractive to be honest. There’s a post about dysphoria I saw going around, the things on it are basically what I use to figure things out.
Are you interested in having children? Why or why not?
I am actually! Not anytime soon, but I’m the responsible type for sure, and judging by the way I love growing plants and being around animals, I’m probably a nurturing person. I actually like kids too, lol, they’re just so high-energy.
What identity advice would you give your younger self?
You’re a boy. Go!
What do you think of gender roles in relationships?
I think people are going to have different ways of expressing themselves that make them happy, but… I don’t think they should infringe on basic human decency. When I hear “role” I think of acting a certain way because someone told you to, something I want to disagree with on the spot.
Anything else you want to share about your experience with gender?
People move out of my way on the sidewalk and take me seriously now. Privilege or self-confidence… I never want to forget what it used to be like, or get too entitled.
What is something you wish people know about being lgbt+?
That it’s simply living one’s reality. I think that trips up a lot of straight people -- that some people just come like this, and they don’t have to make it fit into their personal identity.
Why are proud to be lgbt+?
Because I worked hard to be alive and happy right now. I’m proud of choosing to get through those rough patches, take care of myself, heal, take walks, cook breakfast, learn healthy coping mechanisms, that was out of love for myself and a defiant conviction that I have a place in this world.
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Not Happening (Pt. 2)
Summary: An online dating site clearly makes a mistake when it matches you with the one person you cannot stand.
A/N: Thank you so much for all the love on the first part!! I’m having so much fun writing this story! I hope you guys enjoy it! I promise more Bucky next time.. i just felt this was a more natural series of events. This part has a few moments from the actual Parks and Rec episode I was inspired by. The story wont follow it exactly, though. Have great week and as always, thank you so very much for reading :)
PART 1 / MY STORIES
This could not be happening. Who in their right mind would think you and Bucky, of all 7 billion people on this planet, would be a good match? And not just any match, SOULMATE FUCKING LEVEL MATCH!!!!
You turned to see your friends still doubled over in laughter. Your mind raced, reaching what you thought could be the only plausible cause for this.
It was a prank.
Your friends knew your tense situation with Bucky. These jerks probably thought it would be funny to set all this up to see how you would react. Their plan getting even better as he suddenly had decided to barge in your conversation. Well, you hoped they had prepared for the show you were about to give them. So much for being the most level-headed one.
“You two,” you glared at them as they continued laughing. Wanda even reaching a hand up to her eyes to wipe away her tears. “You think this is funny?”
“No,” Nat said, her voice breathless from not being able to catch her breath before speaking. “This is hilarious!”
“You set this up, didn’t you? You guys know how much I can’t stand that cocky, arrogant, son of a –”
“Hey!” Wanda interrupted before you got the satisfaction of speaking your mind. “We didn’t, I swear. How would we be able to get the system to do that?”
“Yeah,” Nat spoke up, finally getting her laughter under control. “Your love connection to Barnes is just too strong we couldn’t fake it even if we tried.”
“Oh quiet! You mean this stupid site actually thinks we’re a good match?” you slumped back into your chair.
“Wrong again, my dear,” Nat said, a smirk appearing on her lips and if you had felt the need to punch a similar smirk off Bucky’s face you were feeling it again, maybe even stronger this time around. “A perfect match.”
“That’s it!” You said pulling the laptop closer, quickly scrolling down before you got a second look at Bucky’s irrationally irritating picture. You moved over the cursor to the link you were suddenly desperately needing to open. “Here it is,” you whispered to yourself as you found their Customer Service number.
“What are you doing?” Nat said as you pulled out your phone from your purse and dialed the number. You held up a finger, letting her know now was not exactly the best moment to ask questions.
“This is Craig at whosyourmate.com. How can I help you?” came a male’s voice through the phone. His tone was friendly, but in your state of mind everything and everyone seemed annoying.
“Craig,” your voice perfectly matched the level of annoyance you were currently feeling. Nat and Wanda looked on in confusion as your conversation with Craig went on. “Your service is crap.”
“Can you be more specific?” Craig replied, a phrase he had most likely been trained to say when he dealt with crazy customers. It was neutral, maybe even thought to be calming. Yeah, you were aware you were being crazy, but Craig and his services had matched you with Bucky. The one person on this planet you could not stand. So, being crazy, ironically, seemed to be the most logical response.
“Yes,” you continued, “your soul-mate match was totally wrong for me.”
From the corner of your eye you saw Nat rolling her eyes as Wanda mouthed Oh my god, their second-hand embarrassment clearly visible as they let their eyes wander around the room, taking note of whoever was also witnessing your outburst.
“I mean, I don’t even like him as a friend,” you went on, ignoring your friends’ reactions. “He’s like an annoying neighbor you can’t move away from, who purposely leaves dog shit on your front door just to ruin your day.”
“We have a very sophisticated algorithm that’s paired a thousand of couples,” said Craig, you could practically hear his eyes rolling, however impossible that was. “I actually met my wife on the site.”
You felt your temper rising. How could Craig think you and Bucky could be compared to him and his wife! That wouldn’t only imply an actual romantic connection with the only man in the world who took more time on his hair than a pageant queen, but also a possible marriage! You couldn’t even talk to the Bucky without wanting to punch him in the face. There was no way you could ever even begin to think about Bucky in a romantic way.
“Really? You met your wife on this site?” you said unable to control the words that came out of your mouth. “Well, that’s not gonna last.”
“Ok,” Nat said grabbing the phone from your hand. “Sorry Craig,” she said into the phone. “My friend here is not being the most rational. I’m sure she doesn’t mean what she just said. I’ll be sure to let her know what she did was wrong.”
“Your marriage is a sham, Craig!” you tried to say into the phone, but Nat quickly hung up the call after another quick apology to Craig.
“Jesus,” Nat began. “All this because a silly site matched you with Bucky?”
You groaned, knowing you were overreacting.
“How many people are on that site and their highly sophisticated algorithm,” you said in a mock tone, “Just happened to match me and that idiot?”
“Well maybe their algorithm can see past what you can,” Wanda said with a smile as she quirked her eyebrow, knowing very well her statement would get a reaction out of you.
“Please!” you said not knowing what to do with your hands as you became increasingly uncomfortable with the picture Craig and his sham marriage had planted in your head. “As if a series of ones and zeros can know more about the complete ass Bucky is than me, someone who has had the misfortune of actually spending time with him.”
“Then don’t make such a big deal if its just a silly series of ones and zeros. I mean, Y/N, you questioned the integrity of a marriage! What if Craig goes home and breaks the heart of who is probably a lovely woman because of the doubts he now has thanks to your call,” Wanda continued, causing Nat to chuckle.
You hid behind your hands knowing Wanda was exaggerating but still feeling guilty at your comments to Craig. Poor guy probably had to deal with dozens of people like you. And his wife WAS probably lovely.
Suddenly a thought crossed your mind that had your palms turning cold.
“Shit,” you said still from behind your hands. “Shit, shit, shit!!!”
“What now?” Nat groaned. “Want to call another customer service line and make them question their life choices?”
“No!” you said as you put your hands down, dramatically hitting the table as the thought you had sent chills up your spine. “Oh my god! Do you think Bucky will also get alerted that we somehow, reasons still unknown, got matched on this stupid site?!”
Wanda’s jaw dropped as she heard what you said. Nat, simply began to laugh once again, seemingly happy at being able to mock your misery a second time.
“Wanda! Tell me he will never find out about this!! PLEASE!!”
“I don’t know!” she replied. Her voice laced with more worry now that she seemed to be understanding just how humiliating Bucky knowing would be.
“Wanda, this was your idea!! You have to know!!”
“Well I don’t!” she said grabbing her laptop and looking through the site for possible answers. “I mean they had a FAQ page but I can’t find anything about how their notifications work.
“Call Craig again,” Nat suggested. “And while you’re at it, ask if he and his wife plan on having children, maybe Y/N can talk him out of that too if they are.”
“Natasha, shut up,” you snapped back, pulling out your phone again.
Your call never went through, maybe Craig had been offended to the point of having the customer service line block your number or maybe the universe was simply plotting against you maintaining your sanity. After a few failed attempts from Wanda and Nat’s phone, you gave up.
“You know,” came Nat’s voice, who at this point you were frankly over hanging out with. “You could just ask him tonight at the photo gallery thing he invited us.”
“You’re not serious,” you said, glancing her way with clear disgust across your face.
What did she expect you to say to Bucky?
Hey, I know we’ve always hated each other but did you happen to see the soulmate level match we got on whosyourmate.com? or maybe Nice gallery, anyway we might be soulmates, have you heard anything about that?
He would surely laugh at your face and never let you forget how much an idiot this site had made of you.
“You are going to have to face him eventually. I mean, unless you’re ok with not seeing Steve either. Those two are practically attached at the hip. Also start saying goodbye to Sam,” Nat retorted.
“Yeah, ok, I get it,” you responded, running your hands across your face in frustration. If only you had stuck with your gut and never made that profile. Then you wouldn’t have to even consider cutting Steve out of your life. You knew that was out of the question. Steve was a great friend and losing him seemed like way too much of a sacrifice to make simply because Bucky had been matched with you. “Fine!” you concluded, needing to stop overthinking things, “I’ll go to that gallery thing and if I have to punch him I will.”
“Amazing,” Nat said with a mocking chuckle.
“You know, you’re supposed to be on my side,” you said to her.
“Oh, I am,” she replied. “You might just land yourself a Mr. Y/L/N who knows just how to get under your skin. They do say there is only one step between love and hate. Just imagine all the passionate love making you’ll be having.”
You dry heaved, unable to control your natural reaction to even thinking about that.
“That’s disgusting and will never happen. I will first marry Craig and then consider anything with Bucky.”
“Craig is happily married,” Wanda said, clicking her tongue.
“Not after my call, remember? You vividly pictured the breaking up of his marriage.”
--
Hours later you found yourself in front of the mirror once again. This time liking what you were wearing a lot more than the outfit you had haphazardly thrown on in the morning. The outfit Bucky had happily pointed out as he made sure to ruin the great morning you were having with your friends.
A groan escaped from your mouth at the thought of the night that awaited you. Bucky could either already be aware of the site’s clearly mistaken match it had made for the two of you. If this scenario played out, you would have to defend yourself from his guaranteed teasing. You knew he would be aware of how much the match had bothered you and he would do anything to use that against you. Or, he could not know of the match and you could just try to enjoy the photo gallery while still having to deal with Bucky’s overwhelmingly annoying presence. Maybe even try to figure out why the website had ever thought of pairing you two together.
With a sigh, silently sending out a supplication of mercy to the universe, you smoothed out your outfit, as ready as you could ever be to face the mess your online profile had created in its short life.
PART 3
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Bucky Tags
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Favorite books of 2019
A *very* late continuation of my annual tradition … finally got a push to finish this in case you’re looking for book ideas while we find ourselves with plenty of extra time during quarantine. I read a little less in 2019, maybe because I’m working on something new (and have a new kid) or maybe just because I’m getting lazy as I get older? 48 books total, of which 4 were tree books and 23 were audiobooks—I did spend more time in transit last year (yes, it’s possible to listen to audiobooks and talk to ATC at the same time!), but it felt more productive.
Without further ado, my favorite books. (affiliate links get donated to charity at the end of the year). I’ve included some highlights from Kindle books, but many of my favorites this year were audiobooks, where I haven’t found a great solution to highlighting (especially those I get from the library on a variety of crappy - but free! - services).
Destiny Disrupted, by Tamim Ansary - this was probably my favorite book of the year. I liked it so much I cold-emailed the author and invited him over for dinner, and we had a wonderful time with he & his wife and a bunch of friends. Fundamentally, the book is a history of the world told from the point of view of Islam; the point he makes, quite compellingly, was that there are really two (and probably more) different histories of the world, with the same facts, that just depend on your narrative. This is starting to play on a lot of things I’ve been trying to understand recently, including Ben Hunt’s Epsilon Theory and specifically, his idea of the Narrative Machine, and all of the theory of Common Knowledge that includes. And he does all this with an easy-to-read but well-researched writing style. If you like this one, I’m still working my way through his next one, The Invention of Yesterday, and so far so good.
A ruler can never trust a popular man with soldiers of his own. One day, Mansur invited Abu Muslim to come visit him and share a hearty meal. What happened next illustrates the maxim that when an Abbasid ruler invites you to dinner, you should arrange to be busy that night.
On the Sunni side, four slightly different versions of this code took shape, and the Shi’i developed yet another one of their own, similar to the Sunni ones in spirit and equally vast in scope. These various codes differ in details, but I doubt that one Muslim in a thousand can name even five such details.
Let me emphasize that the ulama were not (and are not) appointed by anyone. Islam has no pope and no official clerical apparatus. How, then, did someone get to be a member of the ulama? By gaining the respect of people who were already established ulama. It was a gradual process. There was no license, no certificate, no “shingle” to hang up to prove that one was an alim. The ulama were (and are) a self-selecting, self-regulating class, bound entirely by the river of established doctrine. No single alim could modify this current or change its course. It was too old, too powerful, too established, and besides, no one could become a member of the ulama until he had absorbed the doctrine so thoroughly that it had become a part of him. By the time a person acquired the status to question the doctrine, he would have no inclination to do so. Incorrigible dissenters who simply would not stop questioning the doctrine probably wouldn’t make it through the process.
If a man commits a grave sin, is he a non-Muslim, or is he (just) a bad Muslim? The question might seem like a semantic game, except that in the Muslim world, as a point of law, the religious scholars divided the world between the community and the nonbelievers. One set of rules applied among believers, another set for interactions between believers and nonbelievers. It was important, therefore, to know if any particular person was in the community or outside it.
Range, by David Epstein. Thomas Layton recommended this to me (he was reading a derivative work on how to coach basketball while applying this theory), and it was fun. The fundamental thesis is that you can split environments into “nice” and “wicked” learning environments. In nice environments, feedback is quick and accurate, and rewards specialization early (eg golf ... you can practice every possible shot by yourself). In wicked environments, feedback is delayed (if available at all), and the rules — let alone the situation — are fluid. This rewards “range”, or a variety of experiences (Epstein uses tennis as an example, but much of life is even more obvious). The return of the Renaissance Man (or Woman) — yay!
When I began to write about these studies, I was met with thoughtful criticism, but also denial. “Maybe in some other sport,” fans often said, “but that’s not true of our sport.” The community of the world’s most popular sport, soccer, was the loudest. And then, as if on cue, in late 2014 a team of German scientists published a study showing that members of their national team, which had just won the World Cup, were typically late specializers who didn’t play more organized soccer than amateur-league players until age twenty-two or later.
A recent study found that cardiac patients were actually less likely to die if they were admitted during a national cardiology meeting, when thousands of cardiologists were away; the researchers suggested it could be because common treatments of dubious effect were less likely to be performed.
Whether or not experience inevitably led to expertise, they agreed, depended entirely on the domain in question. Narrow experience made for better chess and poker players and firefighters, but not for better predictors of financial or political trends, or of how employees or patients would perform. The domains Klein studied, in which instinctive pattern recognition worked powerfully, are what psychologist Robin Hogarth termed “kind” learning environments. Patterns repeat over and over, and feedback is extremely accurate and usually very rapid.
...
In wicked domains, the rules of the game are often unclear or incomplete, there may or may not be repetitive patterns and they may not be obvious, and feedback is often delayed, inaccurate, or both.
When younger students bring home problems that force them to make connections, Richland told me, “parents are like, ‘Lemme show you, there’s a faster, easier way.’” If the teacher didn’t already turn the work into using-procedures practice, well-meaning parents will. They aren’t comfortable with bewildered kids, and they want understanding to come quickly and easily. But for learning that is both durable (it sticks) and flexible (it can be applied broadly), fast and easy is precisely the problem.
Programs like Head Start did give a head start, but academically that was about it. The researchers found a pervasive “fadeout” effect, where a temporary academic advantage quickly diminished and often completely vanished. On a graph, it looks eerily like the kind that show future elite athletes catching up to their peers who got a head start in deliberate practice.
Hilariously, predictors were willing to pay an average of $129 a ticket for a show ten years away by their current favorite band, while reflectors would only pay $80 to see a show today by their favorite band from ten years ago.
In the spring of 2001, Bingham collected twenty-one problems that had stymied Eli Lilly scientists and asked a top executive if he could post them on a website for anyone to see. The executive would only consider it if the consulting firm McKinsey thought it was a good idea. “McKinsey’s opinion,” Bingham recalled, “was, ‘Who knows? Why don’t you launch it and tell us the answer.’”
There was also a “perverse inverse relationship” between fame and accuracy. The more likely an expert was to have his or her predictions featured on op-ed pages and television, the more likely they were always wrong. Or, not always wrong. Rather, as Tetlock and his coauthor succinctly put it in their book Superforecasting, “roughly as accurate as a dart-throwing chimpanzee.”
Deep Work by Cal Newport - this was an easy listen while on a couple of long runs in Palm Springs during Indian Wells weekend, and definitely worth it. Like classics such as How to Win Friends And Influence People, there’s not a lot fundamentally groundbreaking here, but he articulates some really fundamental principles well enough that you stop and take notice and ask, “I know that ... why am I not doing that?” Now I just need to review my notes...
Age of Ambition, Chasing Fortune in China - Evan Osnos. I think Scott Cannon originally recommended this book to me, and it was fascinating. It’s a bit of a long, slow read but a lot of insight into China’s evolution over the last few decades. I’m not sure what I’ll do with this knowledge (or the many other China books I’ve read recently) but it feels important for the coming decades. If only I could learn Mandarin like Matt MacInnis
Every country has corruption, but China’s was approaching a level of its own. For those at the top, the scale of temptation had reached a level unlike anything ever encountered in the West. It was not always easy to say which Bare-Handed Fortunes were legitimate and which were not, but political office was a reliable pathway to wealth on a scale of its own. By 2012 the richest seventy members of China’s national legislature had a net worth of almost ninety billion dollars—more than ten times the combined net worth of the entire U.S. Congress.
But unlike Zaire, China punished many people for it; in a five-year stretch, China punished 668,000 Party members for bribery, graft, and embezzlement; it handed down 350 death sentences for corruption, and Wedeman concluded, “At a very basic level, it appears to have prevented corruption from spiraling out of control.”
The Central Propaganda Department let it be known that reports that suggested a shortage of happiness were not to receive attention. In April 2012 my phone buzzed: All websites are not to repost the news headlined, “UN Releases World Happiness Report, and China Ranks No. 112.”
Over the years, the risk of being blamed for helping someone was a scenario that appeared over and over in the headlines. In November 2006 an elderly woman in Nanjing fell at a bus stop, and a young man named Peng Yu stopped to help her get to the hospital. In recovery, she accused Peng of causing her fall, and a local judge agreed, ordering him to pay more than seven thousand dollars—a judgment based not on evidence, but on what the verdict called “logical thinking”: that Peng would never have helped if he hadn’t been motivated by guilt.
At one point, Chinese programmers were barred from updating a popular software system called Node.js because the version number, 0.6.4, corresponded with June 4, the date of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
he vowed to punish not only low-ranking “flies” but also powerful “tigers.” He called on his comrades to be “diligent and thrifty,” and when Xi took his first official trip, state television reported that he checked into a “normal suite” and dined not at a banquet, but at a buffet—a revelation so radical in Chinese political culture that the word buffet took on metaphysical significance. The state news service ran a banner headline: XI JINPING VISITS POOR FAMILIES IN HEBEI: DINNER IS JUST FOUR DISHES AND ONE SOUP, NO ALCOHOL.
...
It didn’t take long for the abrupt drop-off in gluttony to affect the economy: sales of shark fin (de rigueur for banquets) sank more than 70 percent; casinos in Macau recorded a drop in VIPs, and Swiss watch exports dropped by a quarter from the year before. Luxury goods makers mourned.
Economists point to a historic correlation between “world’s tallest” debuts and economic slowdowns. There is no cause and effect, but such projects are a sign of easy credit, excessive optimism, and inflated land prices—a pattern that dates to the world’s first skyscraper, the Equitable Life Building. Built in New York at the height of the Gilded Age, it was completed in 1873, the start of a five-year slump that became known as the Long Depression, and the pattern repeated in decades to follow. Skyscraper magazine, a Shanghai publication that treated tall buildings like celebrities, reported in 2012 that China would finish a new skyscraper every five days for the next three years; China was home to 40 percent of the skyscrapers under construction in the world.
Billion Dollar Whale by Tom Wright & Bradley Hope - Mike Vernal told me to drop most things to read this, and he wasn’t wrong. A well-written account of the 1MDB scandal that I’d only vaguely followed, and tries to put it into context when it basically can’t … something like $5.XB stolen over the course of a few years.
Heads in Beds by Jacob Tomsky & Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain - I put these two together, both recommended by Robert MacCloy, because they’re quick and fun. I listened to both on audio and they were both “mindless” but interesting…sort of the inside baseball of both the hospitality and restaurant industries. Don’t use a UV light...anywhere.
Smokejumpers by Jason Ramos - recommended by one of our fire captain neighbors at Oxbow and figured it would be good to understand a little more about wildland firefighting … this took me down a long digression of firefighting books that were interesting but if you want one, this one’s fun.
American icon by Bryce Hoffman - great audiobook that Scott Cannon recommended about Alan Mulaly’s turnaround of the Ford. The single most memorable part — after a couple of years working on turning the company around, a reporter asked him what his priorities for the next year were, and he responded with the same three things he’d said from the beginning. The reporter said something to the affect of “I can’t write about that again, it’s boring, you need something new!” And Mulaly responded “when we’ve got these three things done right, then we’ll have something new. We haven’t finished them yet."
Bad Blood by John Carreyrou - my wife raved about this book after she listened to it, and it was all the rage, so I did too…and it lived up to the hype! Fascinating but managed not to be a tabloid-y gossip-y tale of excess so much as a “yeah, each individual step was only a little over the line, and look where it lead them.” A surprisingly poignant reminder about how “fake it til you make it” in Silicon Valley can be idealized until it’s not. This is the next generation in a line started by Barbarians at the Gate and continued by Smartest Guys In The Room.
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November 24th, 2018 Finding Solutions
November 24th, 2018 Finding Solutions
Yesterday: I maintained the integrity of my reduced calorie budget, I remained refined sugar-free, I met my daily water goal, and I stayed well connected with exceptional support.
The visit with family has gone exceptionally well this week. Another big gathering today at a Chinese buffet place in our hometown will bring together even more family. Mom isn't accustomed to being on the go this much, but she's loving it! She's been coming and going so much lately, the nurses' joke with her, "leaving us again, Miss Beverly?" Today's excursion to Stillwater will be another wonderful opportunity to connect and visit with family we don't see very often.
I can navigate most restaurants. I go in knowing the boundaries of my food plan and knowing, without question, what I need and what is off limits for me in order for it to be an on-plan meal. I'm not afraid to ask specifically for what I need. I don't mind ordering items separately, assembling a meal that works for me, in fact, I did that yesterday at the Mexican restaurant, assembling a fajita chicken salad with only on-plan ingredients--that was fairly simple and I've done it countless times. However, not all restaurants are created equal--and today's restaurant gathering is a completely different story.
I've tried to make this Chinese buffet place work for my food plan. I've scanned the offerings and I've asked detailed questions about the ingredients used. The answers were not in line with my food plan--at all. Now, to be fair, if I were a salad lover, I could certainly make this place work. I'm not. I've never been a salad lover. Yes--the chicken fajita salad thing yesterday worked well and was thoroughly enjoyed--but it's different. That salad used shredded lettuce and contained a nice combination of on-plan ingredients I truly enjoy. A salad bar typically doesn't contain those things--and it typically uses leafy lettuce--and I'm strangely picky about the cut of my lettuce. Those that know me well would laugh at that last sentence because they know my "lettuce issues." I tell ya what--let's not call them "issues." I prefer "preferences." But anyway--I veered off point. My point is...
A Chinese buffet place simply doesn't work for me. Aside from the issues of refined sugar and/or deep fried most everything, there's a psychological element involving my 164-pound relapse/regain period. One of my biggest binge foods involved a dish from a local Chinese restaurant (I'll spare you the glorified food porn description) containing every possible trigger known to me at this point in time: High fat, high refined sugar, refined flour, deep fried, loads of carbs---and somewhere hiding underneath all those trigger ingredients, chicken. I remember ordering that time and time again--and every time, feeling a billion miles away from any semblance of a plan--and truly, feeling scared, hopeless, sad, depressed---and really hoping that this time, the magic trigger dish might take me away from all of those emotions and worry, if not permanently-- maybe for a little while...just let me dive into that illusion of comfort and forget about things. In that pattern, the temporary reprieve became shorter and shorter and I needed more and more to keep on living in the chaos of my addiction.
Why don't you simply request a change in location for the family dinner? Because I'm putting food in its proper place. I will eat before or after the get-together. It's seriously not a big deal. I will focus on visiting (which is the main purpose of the event in the first place), and I'll drink water. The last time (a year ago) we held a family gathering there, I did the same thing and honestly, I don't think very many noticed I wasn't eating. I was engaged and enjoying the conversations. Those that might have noticed know me well enough to know, I'm fine, I've got a food plan, and I'll take care of me.
That's the thing. Maintaining the boundaries of my food plan is my responsibility, not anyone else's. There was a time in my life when I would put that responsibility on other people and circumstances, conveniently playing the victim in an effort to enable my compulsive eating behaviors. "Everyone picked that place, what could I do? I had to eat--I didn't want to offend anybody or be rude! Oh well, I'll do better next time." In that old line of thinking, I made everyone else and the circumstances surrounding every event, responsible for keeping the integrity of my food plan. I could easily rationalize my wildly off-plan choices by pointing to the variables in play and in that, I was off the hook. The bottom line is, when we stop looking for outs we start finding solutions.
Of course, if it was simply one or two people meeting me for dinner, I might request we pick a different place. But I'm not asking a dozen or more people to change their plans so I can order some chicken tacos! -------------- I rarely include a guest post of sorts--but today, I want to share some powerful words from Michael Funaro in Las Vegas. He was very gracious and open in approving my share request. Thank you, Michael! I first met Michael in 2014. Along with my friend Jon from Wisconsin, the three of us enjoyed a dinner and visit.
Michael's story and path is similar to many of us along this road--actually, very similar to most of us. The ups and downs, the losing and regaining--the old diet mentality type stuff--he's been there/done that, too. Michael is a member of the support group I facilitate where he stays connected and shares regularly. He practices his plan each day--and he does it amid incredible challenges. He's incredibly humble and has a beautiful respect for the fragility of it all along this road. Michael inspires me. The following is a post he shared exclusively with our group--and now, with his permission, I'm sharing it with you.
From Michael Funaro:
What a difference a year makes! Happy Black Friday to all of you that will partake. Me, I stay as far away from stores today as possible.
One year ago my life was so different. When I was writing in my journal last night, the entry above it for 2017 on this day stated, "I wonder what the box below will hold on this day next year? I hope and pray that it will be better than today."
I think back to last Black Friday. I had a huge food hangover from probably 10,000 calories of sugar and carbs. I know my blood sugar was well North of 300 on that morning. I was miserable, my attitude sucked and I was at least 120 lbs heavier (probably closer to 150).
I know our ultimate goal is the weight, but the journey can be so rewarding too. We have all those great NSV's along the way. Little ones to big ones. For me, I'm so thankful for the biggest one today. I took my blood sugar this morning and it was 108. So thankful for that. Some of you are either directly or indirectly affected by diabetes and it's such a devastating disease. It affects so much of our body and it's silent for a long time until it strikes. For me, it's so nice to have this NSV this morning that shows me that what I am doing isn't always about just the scale moving. But what happens along that journey to the ultimate goal.
Don't look back next year on this day and think, "IF only I would have started my healthy lifestyle a year ago, where would I be today?" Take it from me. What a difference one year can make. Do it today!
Do you have any NSV's today you are happy about? I'd love to hear them if you do. Mine are too long to list, but the blood sugar is my tops of the day! Have a great day everyone! ----- Thank you, again, Michael! You can email Michael at [email protected]
Thank you for reading and your continued support, Strength, Sean
Source: http://losingweighteveryday.blogspot.com/2018/11/november-24th-2018-finding-solutions.html
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Stop Lying to Job Candidates About the Role
Editor’s Note: SHRM has partnered with Harvard Business Review to bring you relevant articles on key HR topics and strategies.
Too many hiring managers avoid telling candidates the truth about a job. Their logic is that if applicants find out how hard they will work or how boring the core of the open jobs are, they will walk away. This is a mistake. To hire effectively, you have to be honest about what working at your firm is like and what it takes to be successful.
The interview process should be about finding a genuine fit. If a candidate doesn’t think they match up with your company or the role, they are probably right. Having them decline the role will save you from wasting substantial time and resources on onboarding, training and starting to rely on a bad hire, who will probably leave prematurely anyway. The real costs of a hiring mistake are surprisingly significant.
Therefore, we counsel firms to design a process and train employees in letting job applicants interview them as much as they interview the applicants. In line with Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio’s advice in his book, Principles: Life and Work, we encourage our clients to “Show candidates your warts.”
The truth is you have no choice. In past decades, recruiting was easier. Investment banks, consulting firms and other companies could come to college campuses to host events, in which they presented well-orchestrated pitches and painted their firms in the best possible light. Student questions could be met with the canned responses. And before any potential candidates were able to probe any further, the company representatives were gone. Finding out more would have required hours of outreach to company employees and alumni, so most students simply accepted employers’ self-portrayed images as close enough to the truth.
Today, organizations trying to apply such tactics will have a rude awakening. In the era of Glassdoor and LinkedIn, savvy candidates will research the good, bad and ugly about your company before interviewing. If you distort the truth by trying to project a purely positive image, they will know it.
Smart organizations instead use the interview to show that they can be transparent and that they expect the same candor from employees. This is an opportunity to set the tone for the relationship, so you want to model the right behavior. Do be positive. You can, for example, talk about why your happiest employees love working for you. But also be frank about the realities of your workplace and the job. Explain what some candidates may find tough, what motivates people to thrive in the role despite perceived downsides, and the key elements of your corporate culture, which could be a positive for some but not right for everyone.
We recommend that hiring managers spend a good deal of their time asking questions designed to help candidates lower their guards and truly understand if they will be happy in the roles to which they are applying. For instance, a recruiter might say one of the following:
We have asked you several questions to make sure you will be a good fit for us. I’d now like to make sure that we will be a good fit for you. I’m sure it’s important for you to be happy in your next job, so the more open you are with me, the more helpful I can be to you.
Let’s fast-forward two months – would you be happy with [some demanding aspect of the job]?
You told another interviewer you were okay with traveling 80% of the time. Are you sure that won’t become too much?
Research shows that asking direct and blunt questions is the best way to elicit honest answers. Unfortunately, many of us instead tend to try to read between the lines of interview conversations and come to our own conclusions about a candidate’s preferences. For example, the CEO of a billion-dollar company with whom we worked would ask candidates, “What is your long-term career goal?” If they did not respond with one specific idea or could not clearly articulate it, he would take it as a sign that they were not ambitious enough and probably not willing to work long hours. He almost certainly would have received better outcomes by simply asking people if they were happy to come early and stay late in pursuit of success. Another hiring manager we know used to avoid asking sales rep candidates if they were fine with high-volume calling. He simply assumed that those who had past experience with that approach would be amenable to doing it again for his firm and vice versa. When we proposed to him that he ask candidates about this issue, he chuckled and responded, “Of course they will say they are OK with those volumes. They want the job.”
But, in our experience, most people at more senior levels will not misrepresent themselves just to get offers. Hiring managers thus overestimate the risk of being lied to, while underestimating the risk of people genuinely not understanding whether or not they are suited to certain roles and organizations. If you still have trouble believing that, you might find a simple comparison helpful: Do you think that some 40% of U.S. marriages end up in divorce because brides and grooms intentionally lie to each other? Or is it that most don’t ask themselves enough tough questions about whether they are good long-term fits as spouses?
Vincent Szwajkowski, a Boston Consulting Group alum and currently the chief marketing officer of ArcLight Cinemas, goes so far as to ask top candidates if they would like to conduct reverse reference checks on him. If they accept, he introduces them to two of his past direct reports — typically including one person who didn’t work out — and encourages them to ask any and all questions they have. “Don’t get me wrong,” Szwajkowski told us, “I don’t want to lose a great candidate, but I’d really hate to have to re-fill this position in six months because the candidate didn’t like working for me.”
At the same time, there are also steps you can take to help ensure candidates are honest with you. First, make sure to approach all interactions with a dose of humility; studies have found that people are very poor lie detectors. Understand that you cannot read minds and might have to work to get at the full truth. Second, let them know that you intend to pursue references. This will scare away the bald-faced liars. (One point of caution is that candidates may perceive this to be intrusive, become less likely to accept a potential offer from you and also leave a negative review on GlassDoor.com. The tone, wording, personal maturity and natural charm of the person handling the interaction matters.) Finally, ask probing follow-up questions, ideally preceded by a softening statement that encourages honesty. For example, “I want to make sure I understand you correctly, do you mean that?” or “I want to be certain that we are aligned. Are you sure that you would be OK with that aspect of the role?”
Neither organizations nor employees benefit when the wrong people are hired. Organizations should take the lead in promoting more truth in the hiring process.
Atta Tarki is the founder and CEO of specialized executive-search and project-based staffing firm ECA. He is also the co-author of the upcoming book, Evidence Based Recruiting. Jeff Weiss is founder and managing director of CCI, a national CEO network, and assistant professor, adjunct at UCLA School of Medicine.
This article is reprinted from Harvard Business Review with permission. ©2019. All rights reserved.
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The Switchblade and the Cross
Why did I invert the title of a David Wilkerson book from the 60s? Because that book is a trash fire and I needed those words.
When I was eighteen I wanted to go somewhere nobody knew me. I probably should have joined the Army or started huffing gas in the nearest trailer park. Almost anything would've been more reasonable than what I did. I found Jesus.
I think maybe the world scared me. I think I wanted friends and went to the church because they wanted anyone at all. The thread that led me into the flock began online. I heard music and I liked it. It was local so I checked their page. I saw a showtime and I showed up on time. That's how I was first in line to The Gills' live show to commemorate the release of their first album. I got the very first CD and I walked alone into a dark auditorium alongside many strangers to see a band I knew nothing about. The Gills took the stage smiling. The crowd loved them. I sat quietly in fear of appearing to enjoy music too much in public, but on the inside I was dancing. They were catchy. I thought nothing cool came out of my home town but I was happy to be proven wrong. At the end of the show with the final notes still hanging in the air, the skinny redheaded keyboard player spoke for the first time. His voice was delicate and his manner nervous. He invited anyone who wished to come the next day to worship in the same building. I have a problem with saying "yes." Sometimes I wind up in strange places.
I returned the next morning and stood awkwardly beside the front door waiting for a literal miracle. I stood around a long time having believed church to be something that happened early. It was 7:00 AM and the building still looked secular. An incredibly muscular young man with a flattop parked his truck and walked directly at me grinning from ear to ear. From the moment I met Griffin I trusted him. He simply wanted to be good. He asked if I wanted to help setup and I of course said yes. Griffin asked me a lot of questions. He wanted to know how I found out about Flamingo Road Church. Who I was, what I did, where I was from, where I wanted to go, what I wanted to do, and how had I found God? I had plenty of time to give answers and ask him the same. Griffin and I traded life stories while we errected banners inside, scattered traffic cones outside, arranged about a hundred chairs inside, ran miles of cord to various places, positioned speakers for optimal performance, and anything else to make the show happen. Griffin was from Alabama. He was going to college but would have to leave soon to fulfill his duties to the Army. More than anything he loved Jesus, his country, and his girlfriend Niki. As we worked I constantly had to stop and shake hands with other people pitching in. New people were a hot commodity and I was just as tired from smiling and talking as I was setting up. When it was finally time for the main event the building was packed out. Every seat taken and still more standing. Everyone happy to be there. Griffin deposited me with a tall man bearing a small afro and a very relaxed manner. TC is the most positive person I have ever met. He listened extremely well and never hesitated to offer help or advice. TC just loved being among the living. He introduced me to a conga line of other very attractive people in college and as the lights went dark TC bowed out and headed for the stage. In the dark I found myself sitting front and center between two twenty-sonethings. A well dressed man named Nathan and beautiful short woman named Leah. When the service started I was surprised.
In my experience up to that point, church and the act of worshipping Jesus were deliberately painful things. Church was boring and long because it was supposed to be. Church was quiet save for an old Southerner scolding the seated sinners because it was supposed to be. Songs sung for Jesus were about the wretchedness of the singers and the hope that they might maybe receive forgiveness they didn't deserve. As a child I hated church. I spent my first two years of education in a Christian school and hated that even more. Even at an early age I found the Bible boring, wordy, and contradictory. In Sunday school I refused to color anything because I knew there would be no consequences save perhaps lashes with a switch back at home that I would no doubt earn some other way. At home I would frustrate my family by asking why it was OK to lie to the tax collectors or what the specific requirements were to use the Lord's name. My efforts usually led me to a leather belt. Persistence paid off though. When I was 7 I got to go to public school and I never went to church with my family again. My parents and all my sisters have a sort of mutual love and disinterest in Jesus. They love to sit and sing along but the idea of actually reading the book is just silly. It's HUGE. It doesn't make any SENSE. The nice parts like Heaven and the Ark will always be there to help them sleep without any of the fire, stone, or spears. Their strategy was always to approach me with the assumption that I believed what they believed and disregard anything I said to the contrary. It's no surprise then that to me "Jesus" was not compatible with "fun."
Whenever TC played his guitar for the congregation at Flamingo Road Church you knew that whatever the truth might be TC felt blessed. He was happy. The other people on stage were happy. The skinny redheaded keyboard player was up there laughing with the rest. I remarked to Nathan and Leah that I recognized the keyboard player from The Gills. Nathan simply smirked and said "That's Allan. He's my little brother." When the music stopped a man in his thirties rushed out on stage. He had jeans and boots with a suit jacket and dress shirt. He greeted everyone and thanked them for coming. A quiet dignity came over the room. Pastor Chris spoke for maybe five minutes before introducing the man above him. Everyone please welcome Pastor Troy. Troy wasn't there. He was on a massive television. Troy was in Doral Texas at the OTHER Flamingo Road Church. One of many. Troy was perhaps 40 and had a very high voice to be so large. He also sported jeans, boots, and dress clothes on top. Troy is the focal point and also the weak point of the whole event. His standard sermon is about 40 minutes. Ten minutes intro. 5 minutes quoting fragments of scripture. 10 minutes extrapolating his point from the sacred sentence fragments. 5 minutes of prop comedy. Ten minutes asking for money. It's not life changing. It's not even good at what it's trying to do. It's not a guilt trip either though, not completely. The TV turns off. Chris comes back out. Donation plates. Music. Pavlov would've been proud. As the musicians revived the crowd for a final sing along with capital G, Nathan turned to me and invited me to a Bible study that Tuesday night geared towards people in college. I wasn't in college and in fact had dropped out of high school but Leah would be there and so would Griffin and TC and Allan would if he wasn't busy and of course I said yes. A quarter billion handshakes later it was time to leave and I offered to help put the stuff away that I had set up. Griffin and the others just laughed, they had two more identical services in the next few hours. Somebody from the final group would organize a team to put the stuff away. By 3 PM the building would be secular again. Flamingo Road Church would be locked up and its flock scattered to the winds.
On Tuesday we met at Leah's house because it was very neat and clean with a big living room. She took hosting seriously and usually had snacks available and candles everywhere. I had trouble finding the place and when I got there I was faced with about twenty beautiful people sitting cross-legged on Leah's carpet. Everyone was very happy to be there and greeted me warmly. Most of them I met briefly before but for the very first time I got to shake Allan's hand and tell him I loved his music. Allan was shy brushed off the praise. Over the course of the next year I would spend at least three days a week with these people and the routine became second nature. On Sunday I tried to arrive early to help get the building ready. We jammed out with the band. Thought a little about Jesus. Talked about money. Jammed out again. Every week it seemed we stuck around longer and longer just to talk. On Tuesday we met up for Bible study. Nathan was the College Minister as it turns out, so it was his job to pick talking points for us that went with the church's theme that week. He also presided over all discussion, having had the most Christian Theology classes. Usually Nathan would ask a question and ask everyone to turn to some page or other. Then we would have an open discussion about the ideas. Everyone shined in their own way. Griffin was earnest and to the point. Leah was thoughtful and patient. TC was wise beyond his years. Sarah (a social worker) had so much real life experience to lend to her ideas. Russell had a knack for explaining complex ideas with clever metaphors. Ashley made everyone laugh and always told the truth even when it hurt. Ryan was open and strong. Allan was humble under all circumstances. Niki was hard working and well traveled. Sarah (bank teller) was quiet but sharp. I did what I do, poke holes in things, happy to be the black sheep which placed me at odds with Nathan who had the job of being smartest guy in the room. Nathan might have us watch a video and then reiterate the video's point saying something like "Prayer is not a conversation with God, but living your life in tune with God." I said that reminded me a lot of a lesson from Zen bhuddism in which meditation is not a state of mind but a state of being. Nathan did not like this. Nor did he like it when I compared and contrasted creation myths from Norse and Egyptian mythology with the Garden of Eden. He bit his tongue when I quoted the Book of Enoch but riled at me for knowing a few sentences from the Quran. Nathan made it clear that my ideas were born out of a lack of understanding scripture. In all categories the Bible was superior and unique, and Nathan was its one true interpretor. Usually after our talks the guys and gals would split up. The women would go to Leah's room and shut the door, what went on in there I cannot imagine. Mostly the men talked about masturbating and how ashamed they were. One by one the men would be asked to say anything they'd been struggling with. Griffin was struggling with waiting until marriage to be intimate with Niki, which resulted in his struggle not to masturbate. Russell broke out into tears and admitted that he had struggled with pornography and had gone to great lengths to keep himself from it. The other men had similar stories. When it was my turn to speak I told the truth. I felt like I masturbated a perfectly respectable amount and couldn't see how Jesus could blame me so I didn't feel the least bit guilty. What I struggled with was faith itself. Not the existence of a Sky King but the bizarre nature and maddening decisions of that creature if it did exist. I struggled with God's insanity and how I was expected to react to it. As it turns out, masturbation is the right answer, and my struggle was met with awkward silence. Nathan basically told me that God worked in mysterious ways and to let Jesus into my heart. Russell said that God's plan was like a grand painting, but I was trying to view it through a microscope, so of course some parts seemed bad. I kept going but my struggle went with me.
Then one day Rachel was there. Rachel was new in town. She took on the responsibility of watching everybody's kids during the worship services. She was great with children and was studying to be a teacher. Rachel was outspoken and boiling over with cheer. She was always coming up with activities for the kids. Rachel worked constantly and usually did so while singing and dancing. She talked just much with her hands as her words. We started doing everything together. Kids stress me out but every Sunday I found myself watching her watch the kids and occasionally moving something heavy or making sure nobody died while she left the room. I left all the discipline to Rachel because kids just obeyed her without question. She spoke their language. She watched their TV shows. She tried to convince me to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender. I tried to convince her to read Crime and Punishment. We made a good team because Rachel was like a human bubble bath and I was a tar pit. Rachel used to run up behind me and almost throw me to the ground with her arms wrapped around me. We watched the Winter Olympics with some other people from the Bible study group. Shaun White demolished the competition. Rachel fell asleep with her head on my shoulder.
I still felt like an outsider. Like the black sheep, but Rachel made me feel like that would go away with time. On the day before her birthday Rachel invited me to her place for dinner. I helped her set up for the party and I showed her how to start a fire. She made dinner. While we were eating Rachel casually mentioned her boyfriend in South Florida would be taking a break from his motorcycle repair classes to visit her. Something inside me went out like a candle. I pretended not to be surprised and finished dinner with my pride intact. She hugs me goodbye and she always hugged firm.
The next thing I know I'm driving down the highway and it's dark and rainy and it's so damn cold. Griffin was off to the Middle East. Russell moved away for work. Ryan moved away for school. Leah was on a missionary trip. Allan quit The Gills because Nathan told him he could use his music to serve God. Sarah was graduating and wouldn't have time for the college Bible study after. TC had to move away with his younger sister because they had no parents left. Nathan was promoted to assistant Pastor and passed his old position on to an even bigger know it all. Rachel had a boyfriend in South Florida going to school to fix motorcycles. How did I not know that? Just as suddenly as they'd come I had no one. I wondered how I got there in the first place. Wasn't I running away from know it all guys like Nathan and motorcycle boyfriends from a long time ago? It wasn't so much the motorcycle but the school that bugged me. Something about the structural approach being imposed on something inherently rebellious. Something about the prepackaged clean campus somewhere devoid of one Hell's Angel or Outlaw. It was on hollow thoughts like this that my mind dwelled when something ran out into the road. It was so dark and so wet I didn't stop in time. One almighty shudder and the squealing of my brakes. I rushed out into the downpoor. My head lights clearly illuminated a whimpering bloody coyote. It couldn't walk. It could hardly breathe. I was hours from a wildlife sanctuary. It was 2 AM. I was almost out of gas. I had a pocket knife because back then I always did. I knew I had a choice. Pull the coyote off the road and move on or help it cross over. Nathan said animals didn't have souls. I said they did and some men didn't. In the end I couldn't make the choice. I just knelt there blocking the desolate road in the middle of a frigid flash flood, running my hand across the beast's fur until he breathed no more. The car ran out of gas long before. I got them both out of the road. I walked a couple miles to the nearest gas station shivering the whole way. I never went back to church. No one ever called. I know what I did to deserve it. God damn it I know. But what the hell did the coyote do to deserve me?
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Auntie’s Request
The Boutique was always such a surreal place to Aamon. His parents dealt in matters that many might find trifling for demonkin - lawyering and owning a flowershop. In many ways, this shop full of magical artifacts and enchantment services was, in his family, his one strong tie to the arcane. Within were a myriad of trinkets to ward off ill fortune or illness, traditional spells to grant one temporary intelligence or strength, and many such other specialized spells that were far too specific to find in most run-of-the-mill, chain stores. But the most unique element of all was Auntie - purveyor and Enchantress extraordinaire.
The bells that announced the entrance door swinging open raised her studious gaze from her current job. Behind the counter she fiddled with equipment which almost seemed surgical, guiding ink into a divot she had grooved out in a piece of sheet metal - a peculiar request from a peculiar customer, which she immediately put on hold as she noticed who had walked in.
“Aamon. How nice of you to visit. Tea?”
He nodded, his head half bowed as he managed a response.
“Sure.”
The boy was always so full of life. Strange to see him like this. She could tell something was amiss, and that he came here for a reason other than idle chit-chat.
“What’s on your mind?”
The woman asked as she swung around from the corner in the back where she kept her kettle - for employees, friends, and family only. The purebreed Succubus stood almost as tall as Aamon, and a fair bit thinner, yet she exuded an air of superiority around her. Not boastfulness, nor pride, nor even power -- superiority. Her hair and flowing dress were straight and angled clearly. Her silhouette was sharp, but yet many of her features contrasted this ; full lips, soft eyes, and perfectly maintained nails made her appear as many other Succubi did. And yet the way she dressed and kept herself made one feel like they were in the presence of a Baroness, rather than a mere enchantress.
A young man like Aamon could never lie to her. No one could lie to her. Auntie always knew best. He spilled his guts to her. About Chevali, the Enyians, the events of the last few months, and more. Soft lips soured and thin lines around her cheeks tugged her features downwards. It was a look she rarely afforded to give to anyone. Auntie oft times would kick those who didn’t understand her nor her wares out of her shop with simple aloof disdain.
But this? At this she was furious. And her quiet, measured anger only grew as Aamon explained further.
“Let me see if I have this straight, buttercup.”
She began, and Aamon’s gaze shot to the floor. He knew how it sounded.
“This sorry excuse for a woman expressed no regret when you put your own hand in front of the man she had tried to stab - and even went so far as to break your ribs for the trouble. Why you would lie to us and the nice doctors about how that happened, I’ll never know.”
Aamon was about to consider speaking up, but she paced back towards him and raised one perfectly manicured nail - painted a sterling combination of white and black.
“Then not only does it turn out she’s crazy, but she’s also possessed and the creature that possessed her doesn’t care in the slightest that she lost her mind and went out for blood - and doesn’t bother to lift. a. finger. to stop her...”
She prodded her finger against his chest. He shrunk down even further.
“...Then when you go to try and help, her father nearly chokes you too! And Aamon, after all this... you want me to craft a charm to protect you from her? To encourage this... suicidal behavior of yours? Not even to mention the time she tried to seduce your father with you, and Lilith, right there.”
It all sounded so awful out loud. Something they were both aware of. Raising her hand, cupping his chin to force him to look at her, Auntie expounded.
“The question was not rhetorical, Aamon.”
“Yes. I need you to help me.”
He was serious. So terribly stupid in this moment, but serious. She removed her hand from his chin, moving to rub her temples as she sauntered about her shop - now locked up for the night.
“Auntie... if you don’t help me, I don’t think I’ll be able to save her. And if that... thing is still there, sapping energy from her, who knows how many p--”
“Do not make this about the ‘greater good’ young man.”
His lips pressed together.
“Why shouldn’t I?”
Her response was swift, but her tone was lowered.
“Aamon. Your abilities... you can go to any random world. Hell, that’s how you ended up in Chevali’s in the first place. If you were to roll the dice and visit, I don’t know, one-hundred new worlds tomorrow, how many of them would have something just as awful happening? Fifty? Sixty? Seventy, even? And think about the billions of worlds there are...”
Aamon shifted his weight to his back leg, quirking a brow. His expression read clearly ‘your point?’
“...If you spend your life thinking that... you have these powers and so you have to use them to help the people who would otherwise never get help, you will be helping people you don’t even know for the rest of eternity. And the track record for the thanks you’ll get? It’s not looking good so far.”
Regardless of whether or not he wanted to admit it, she had a point.
“Just... this once then. I just want your help this once. And then I promise... never again.”
She walked away, hands in front of her and fingers looping together, clearly infuriated.
“Never again? Is that what you told yourself the first time she hit you?”
That cut deep. Aamon felt a wound go down his chest. She was completely and utterly right in so many ways, but still, he couldn’t find it in himself to abandon Chevali. Not after all this.
“...What do you want out of me?”
Came his reply, words somewhat choked up, but his question genuine. Turning to face him, seeing how clearly distraught he was, she took some pity on him. Sighing, and shaking her head, she lowered herself to her desk. It was impossible for him to stay standing, and he moved to sit down across from her.
She sat there, contemplating, gaze shuffling across the various objects and tools in front of her. It seems she had come to the decision to make the enchantment the demon desired. And to him, it seemed like she was now deciding on the how.
“I will do it, but I have a single request.”
Came Auntie’s eventual answer. Swiveling in her chair, facing Aamon, she spoke.
“This charm I will make will protect you. It will make whoever attempts to hurt you have a very tough time of doing so... redirecting their attacks, to put it simply. But it will also have a secondary function.”
Aamon leaned in, brow quirked. She leaned across her table, gaze leveled at him as she explained.
“If the charm goes off too many times in a short amount of time, or if you get so much as a cut longer than a few inches, the secondary charm I’m making will open up a rift to wherever I am.”
Raising herself in her seat, tone becoming dark, she tapped her forefinger against the desk in rhythm with her spoke world.
“And whoever hurt you? I will dislocate their shoulder, break their arm, crack their wrist, shatter every bone in their hand into cracker-crumb pieces, and then shove it so far up their ass they’ll be spitting out fingers for months. And if it’s Chevali, you will stop your escapades to her realm.”
After her measured but wickedly malevolent outburst, she lowered herself in her seat again - she was back on eye level with her nephew.
“Do we have a deal?”
She asked. Aamon was frightened. He understood now why so many rumors about her ties to the eighth circle floated around - and times like now made him believe that his Aunt’s past was buried and secret for a reason. But, she was the best in the business, so he didn’t have many other options...
Her hand was extended - skilled, smooth, and dangerous. Aamon met it with his own clawed digits, and she shook his palm and soul to the core.
“I know people do stupid things for love, buttercup. And as much of a bitch as she sounds, you clearly have feelings for her. I’m fairly confident you’ll regret this some day... but, I will hope that you’ll be happy, in the end. No matter how this plays out.”
Now while Aamon was protected from Chevali, who knew how long the mystic would be protected from a Demoness on a warpath?
...
Auntie knew how long. Because Auntie knows best.
#it's late i'll make a tag for auntie later#mysticsandwonders#relevant only to the plot with chevali but a good insight into aamon's aunt regardless#cw - abuse#cw - violence#{ Demonic Drabbles }
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How to Stay Positive and Happy in Life
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How to Stay Positive and Happy in Life
How to Stay Positive and Happy in Life
Today we’re going to talk about how to stay positive and happy in life and why that is important. Why do we need to be happy and positive all the time? Well, let’s have a discussion and see why it’s going to do massive things for your life. Today, we’re talking about how to stay positive and happy in life.
Thank you for stopping by!
Now, this is a pretty broad topic. First and foremost, I love that you’re here because if you’re here, that means that you’re looking for more happiness than you currently have.
It also means that you’re looking for something that will satisfy the long-term instead of just short-term.
We were put on this planet to experience what happiness feels like. I believe there’s a master plan, and that master plan includes me being happy and includes you being happy.
So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of what creates long-term happiness in our worlds and how to stay positive and happy in life.
Get rid of inadequate words
The first thing that I do to create happiness is to get rid of my inadequate words. Now you could really think about as asterisk words that you see online.
Think about all the ones that get bleeped out of all the movies, I really like getting rid of those ones too, I’m not typically the swearing type.
Still, I’m talking about the other bad words, wrong words like can’t or don’t or not enough.
My favorite bad word to get rid of is should. Why is that a bad word in my vocabulary? Why is that a bad word? It should mean I want something to be other than it already is.
Even worse, if you’re thinking about it past tense, should have is, I want something to be different that I can’t also change because it’s already happened.
It’s in the past, so here’s my philosophy. Don’t should on yourself or anybody else, it gets messy, it gets stinky, and nobody likes it.
Here’s why. If something you feel is happening in a row, should be different, I’m actually going to call that into question. How do I know that it shouldn’t be any different than it is?
Well, simply put because it’s not. If I’m putting a should on something present, past or future, if it’s a should on the future, take away this should and make it a choice.
For example, if you think I should lose a lot of weight, that’s really disempowering, isn’t it? It’s taking away your ability to choose so instead of should in the future, replace the word should with choose.
So I choose to release a lot of weight, I want to be healthy, not I should. It’s a choice. If it’s a should about the present like, I should not do that, or someone else for that matter should not be doing that. Is it really a matter of whether they should or shouldn’t be, and it doesn’t make any difference anyhow. Clearly, they’re doing what they’re doing, not what they should or shouldn’t be doing.
We get to love and accept things as they are. A book called Loving What Is is a book I’m going to recommend to you, it’s a fantastic book about taking our circumstances and making the best from it. So don’t should in the present tense either because what’s going on is what’s going on.
It’s up to you to say, I’m going to have a fantastic perspective on this. What about shooting on your past? That makes even less sense, we can’t shoot on our history because there’s nothing we can do about it.
I can’t say I should have done XYZ. All I can say is, in the future, given the opportunity, here’s what I choose to do. So don’t should on your past and don’t shoot on yourself. Don’t should anyone else in your present and definitely don’t should on your future, it’s not right for you, it’s a bad word in my vocabulary.
Another bad word in my dictionary is something that if you ever hear me say it, feel free to give me a proverbial kick in the ass. “I don’t know.” It drives me crazy when people say I don’t know, even more, mad when I say I don’t know.
When I say I don’t know, here’s what’s going on in my brain. If I’ve got a question, I need an answer. I put I don’t know in the middle, it completely cuts off my ability to find the solution. So when I’m looking for an answer, and I put I don’t know in there, in my brain, it shuts down.
I’m giving instructions to my brain all the time. If I say I don’t know, all the little messengers in my mind are like, oh hang on, wait, guys, he says he doesn’t know so don’t look, don’t look for the answer because he just told us that he doesn’t know. That’s messed up.
Of course, we know, and if we really genuinely don’t know, we can find out. We can do what you’re doing today and go look for the answers.
We can go look for how to find happiness in our lives. We can go look for how to generate that goal. We can go look for the solution. Maybe I don’t know is not in your brain, but I know how to find out.
So I’m going to challenge you this. Get rid of those bad words. Get free of “I don’t know,” “should” and get rid of those ideas that disempower you. Every time you’re tempted to say I don’t know, say, “I always find the answers.”
Or say, “I know someone who does.” Say, “I know how to find out” or “I actually do know, let me think for just a moment.” Every time you’re thinking I want to do a should thing, should on myself, should on someone else, think about taking your power back and saying I choose to.
I respect that, or that happened, and in the future, I want to. Make sure that you’re cleaning up your vocabulary because your happiness doesn’t come from external forces.
And again, this may sound cliche, you can’t buy happiness, happiness doesn’t come from anywhere else outside of you. I was watching Trolls with my daughter.
One of my favorite things about that movie is when the king is sitting down with this little troll. He’s going to eat the source of happiness, and all of their kingdoms is eating this.
Well that’s such a message for emotional eating right, is I need to eat something to be happy, I need to have happiness coming from something outside of me.
One of my favorite moments is when the king is faced with that, and the little troll says, you know, you’re happy now, aren’t you?
You found happiness in your heart and that happiness is magnified when you’re with someone else that helped you find that happiness in your heart.
You didn’t need to bring in any exterior forces to experience happiness. Know that satisfaction is not something that happens to you. Write that down.
Happiness is never something that happens to you, satisfaction is always a choice. You get to choose whatever emotion you feel needs to be expressed at that moment.
Satisfaction is simply a choice. So when you’re ready, let go of whatever emotion is stealing your happiness, feel it to its full existence. If you need to handle grief in a moment, allow that to exist.
If you need to feel sadness at any specific moment, just let yourself think that. Maybe you’ve heard this phrase “walking through the valley of the shadow of death.”
Perhaps you’ve read that, or maybe you’ve heard that somewhere. I love hearing that because it’s walking through, not setting up camp and unpacking your bags and hanging out there.
It’s a progress, it’s a progression in the process of passing through whatever in your world isn’t working for you. But just know that whenever you’re ready to be done with whatever negative emotions coming out for you, that you have full permission given to you by you to step into joy and to step into happiness.
You are enough!
I want to bring up something that’s really really important to mean that’s very, very sensitive to me.
This idea that we are not enough, that idea can steal our happiness away so easily. This idea that I’m not good enough or I’m not thin enough, or I’m not rich enough, or I’m not smart enough, or I’m not tall enough or short enough, or whatever it is, you fill in the blank.
This idea of I am not enough can really sabotage. Try shifting that into I am enough, I am enough to achieve my goals, I have what it takes because there’s a counterfeit we’re at work here.
Follow my lead on this one because if you can wrap your head around this, your mind will be blown just like mine was. First of all, are we alone on this planet?
The total trick question here. No, we’re not, it’s obvious we’re not. We’ve got 7.5 billion people on this planet, we’re not meant to go through life alone, we’re meant to have help.
Asking for help, reaching out for help takes us away from that lonely place of solitude and solidarity. It allows us to step into a higher consciousness and a higher thinking level.
We’re asking for help for someone to come in and give us a perspective that we may not have already.
Now think about this, if we really feel that we’re not enough, we can take that in one of two ways. We can make it with pride and say, you know, I’m not enough, and by the way, to my satisfaction and shame are the same thing.
Pride says I’m better than someone else, shame says I’m worse than someone else. So I can take it with the pride and shame scenario.
Intentions are the cornerstones to creating your reality folks. And every part of your life deserves at least one! Here is mine for my well-being emotionally:
I’m not enough and feel all down about it and poopoo on myself and should on myself and all of these things. Or I can step into, you know what, I’m worth it, I am enough.
I intend to live in the now and feel greater and greater depths of love, fun, joy, happiness, ecstasy, compassion and caring for myself and others; to have fun continuously, and to open (more every day) to my creativity, psychic abilities and passion.
Live a Life You Love
So we can go from I’m not enough down here to I’m worth it, and I am enough, but did you know there’s a higher level, an even higher level than that?
It may sound counterintuitive, but the higher level is actually, I know I’m not enough. Wait for a second! What? Didn’t you say that with the lowest base one? Follow my lead on this.
We go from, oh shame base, I’m not enough, I’ll never be good enough blah blah blah yucky yucky yucky, all the way up to I am enough, I’m good enough, I know I can do this.
The next level is, I know I’m not supposed to do this on my own. I don’t have anything. I need to do this on my own, and I get to do it with someone else.
I get to ask for help, I have never met any single person that’s been successful on this planet who got to success on their own, I don’t think they exist.
Every pattern for success I have ever seen says I recognize that. At one point, I felt horrible about not being enough, and then I got to the point where I thought that I could do it and that I am empowered.
Then I got to the point where I said, you know what, I can’t do it on my own, I don’t have enough of what it takes to do it on my own, but I know where to find the answers.
Happiness lies within you, and once you have had within you, you can connect satisfaction to everyone around you by asking for help.
Asking for help is one of the healthiest, most humbling things that you can do to get where you need to go, and it’s like hitting the fast forward button.
If you want a bonus to finding happiness, happiness is spelled G-R-A-T-E-F-U-L, happiness is spelled grateful. Expressing gratitude in every moment, especially the moments where you don’t feel like being grateful applies, it gets you to a place where you can experience gratitude.
Love yourself
If I told you my life story, you would hear me say that the worst things that happened to me are the most grateful moments. I’m so thankful that those things happened to me because I am who I am.
Now try seeing that on, try saying that try that phrase on. I love who I am. The person I am today is because of the experiences I’ve had in my life. I am grateful to be the person I am.
I’m grateful for the challenges, they made me stronger. I’m thankful for the hiccups because they put me in place to be open and to be humble and to be teachable and to be able to offer something of like commiserating or understanding others.
If you can drop an ounce of gratitude into every experience in your life, you shift from a low vibration into one of happiness, joy, and it’s as easy as being grateful.
I hope this article has shed some light on how to stay happy and positive in life. If you have any questions, feel free to write them below. Have a blessed day! Check out our article 6 Simple Tips On How to Make Yourself Happy!
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