What you might have been

It is never too late to be what you might have been. - George Eliot

Giving advice

It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted.
Aeschylus

When we are lost

It is an old and ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way; and we grasp more fiercely at research, statistics, and technical aids in sex when we have lost the values and meanings of love.

Rollo May

Matters of style and priniciple

In matters of style. swim with the current; In matters of principle. stand like a rock. - Thomas Jefferson

The important thing

The important thing is not to stop questioning. - Albert Einstein

How to make someone covet a thing

In order to make a man covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. - Mark Twian.

The requirements of love

If we want the advantages of love, then we must be willing to take the risks of love. And that requires vulnerability. -Charles Swindoll

False Memories

The opinion of other people can alter our personal memories without our realizing it, according to research by neuroscientists. Writing in the journal Science, Washington University scientists tell about an experiment related to memory conformity. Using an eyewitness style documentary, they found false feedback from others affected the responses of 7 out of 10 people to questions about what they remembered from the film. Even more remarkable is the fact that 4 out of 7 people were not simply conforming to the group, but actually reporting what they now believed to be true.

A team of psychologists showed the quick deterioration of memories by interviewing people about how they first learned about the 9/11 attacks just a few days after the attacks took place. When the researchers came back after one year, more than a third of the details recalled by study participants had changed. In three years time, nearly half of the details were different.

Jonah Lehrer offers this conclusion about these experiments in Wired Magazine:

This research helps explain why a shared narrative can often lead to totally unreliable individual memories. We are so eager to conform to the collective, to fit our little lives into the arc of history, that we end up misleading ourselves.

Humans are storytelling machines. We don’t passively perceive the world – we tell stories about it, translating the helter-skelter of events into tidy narratives. This is often a helpful habit, helping us make sense of mistakes, consider counterfactuals and extract a sense of meaning from the randomness of life. But our love of stories comes with a serious side-effect: like all good narrators, we tend to forsake the facts when they interfere with the plot. We’re so addicted to the anecdote that we let the truth slip away until, eventually, those stories we tell again and again become exercises in pure fiction.

One step at a time

If you're running a 26-mile marathon, remember that every mile is run one step at a time. If you are writing a book, do it one page at a time. -Charles Swindoll

Who is a leader?

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader. – John Quincy Adams

Seeking and Doubt

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. -Rene Descartes

Barking Dogs

If you stop every time a dog barks, your road will never end.
Arabian Proverb

In a hole

If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. – Will Rodgers