One More Perspective

“Is history so simple that it has only one “right” side?”
Beryl Lieff Benderly, Washington

“All people engage in what psychiatrists call motivated reasoning — we adjust the facts to suit our arguments” Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks

“You got the chance to tell everybody your side; it’s my turn to tell ’em mine.” LANY

“To let go does not mean to get rid of, to let go means to let be.” Jack Kornfield

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.”  Ann Brashares

“So why’d you have to rain on my parade?  I’m shaking my head and locking the gates…This is why we can’t have nice things, darling…Did you think I wouldn’t hear all the things you said about me?  It was so nice being friends again…There I was, giving you a second chance…But you stabbed me in the back while shaking my hand…And therein lies the issue…Friends don’t try to trick you…Get you on the phone and mind-twist you…And so I took an axe to a mended fence…But I’m not the only friend you’ve lost lately…“ Taylor Swift

“Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.” Eckhart Tolle

“They say, Joni, you’ve changed…Well something’s lost, but something’s gained / In living every day.” Joni Mitchell

“Every Form of Refuge has its Price” The Eagles

“Don’t shit where you eat!” Olympia Dukakis, Moonstruck

“To release others from the expectations we have of them is to really love them.”  Shirley MacLaine

“Never take the advice of someone who has not had your kind of trouble.” Sydney J. Harris

“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.” Eckhart Tolle

“In the dark, I’d like to read his mind
But I’m frightened of the things I might find; Oh, there must be something he’s thinking of to tear him away, a-ay…I try so hard not to get upset because I know all the trouble I’ll get; Oh, he tells me tears are something to hide and something to fear, eh-eh; And I try so hard to keep it inside so no one can hear; Hush, hush, keep it down now, voices carry…He wants me, but only part of the time; He wants me, if he can keep me in line” ‘Til Tuesday, Voices Carry

“I have this thing where I get older, but just never wiser…It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me
At teatime, everybody agrees
I’ll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror…I’m the problem, it’s me
It’s me, hi…Everybody agrees, everybody agrees”  Taylor Swift, Anti-Hero

“Don’t be fooled by a person’s words. Watch their actions, and they will tell you everything you need to know. “ Billy Cox

“She’ll expose you
When she snows you
Off your feet with the crumbs she throws you” Kim Carnes, Bette Davis Eyes

“Wishin’ I could see the machinations
Understand the toil of expectations
In your mind; Hold me like you never lost your patience; Tell me that you love me more than hate me all the time
And you’re still mine…So smoke ’em if you got ’em cause it’s going down…Let’s take a drink of heaven this can turn around…Let’s raise a glass or two to all the things I’ve lost on you; Ho, oh.  Tell me are they lost on you?…Ho, oh; After everything I’ve lost on you; Is that lost on you?”  LP, Lost on You

“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.“ Mark Twain

“We look for patterns – even when there are none there.  We look for reasons and causes for why things do or do not happen.
And we put these into stories that make us feel something that falls in line with who we believe we are.
Knowing this can help us separate fact from fiction, and hopefully, we can start noticing a positive trend to replace patterns of behavior that aren’t serving us.”  Dan Ariely, Researcher in Behavioral Economics

“Back in the world of disposable emotions; In the climate of temporary dreams…”  Howard Jones, Everlasting Love

“Potential is what people see when they think what’s in front of them isn’t good enough.” Sintara Golden, American Fiction

“Having kids is too big a commitment with too much drudgery and too many wrenching decisions and variable outcomes to be captured only by smiley emojis.” Carolyn Hax, Washington Post

“More good women have been lost to marriage than to war, famine, disease, and disaster.” Cruella De Vil, 101 Dalmatians

“At 70 years old, if I could give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be to use the words ‘fuck off’ much more frequently.” Helen Mirren

“The [Washington] Post and Gates have underscored our failure to go on the offensive in the information war by using counternarrative that asserts our values and ideals and explains the priceless advantages of freedom, the rule of law, a free press and freedom to assemble and express opinion. This failure has weakened national security and emboldened adversaries.” How to start winning the information war, Opinion by Joseph I. Lieberman and Gordon J. Humphrey, April 02, 2024

“It’s highly frowned upon for a woman to not have desperately wanted children and then loving every minute of not having them.  …which is part of women’s conditioning against themselves and each other.”  Hubay Vica

“Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.”  Pearl S. Buck

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”  Eleanor Roosevelt

“Train your attention onto something that doesn’t involve your child, or seeing your child or fixing things with your child. This can feel impossible when you’re stressed to the point of sleeplessness, so think small. Ten minutes, today, listing things you once enjoyed, were good at, found interesting or amusing. The first weeks of this new project can be entirely about finding what fulfills you.
Once you have a candidate, build your knowledge of it, attention to it, investment in it. Tiny steps, again, so it’s not daunting and you can see whether it fits. Let it lead you forward.
I know you’d rather focus on family. But when our first choice doesn’t happen and when the not-happening starts to feel like torture, then that’s our mind’s way of begging for something else to occupy it. Brains are greedy; they want to be fed constantly with things to work on, things to look forward to, opportunities to feel useful and productive. Otherwise they get anxious and replay negative moments or amplify fears or seek relief in familiar habits. Please start deliberately feeding your mind with something new, something uplifting, something within your control.”  Carolyn Hax, Washington Post

“…the trauma I went through with an absentee parent will never — never ever — be worth having my parent back in my life. A bit here and there is manageable for me, but I will never trust my parent again so I can’t have them be a big part of my life. Many people look at my parent and think they are pretty great now and yay for them. But they weren’t great for me growing up, and I am the one who has to live with that.”  Anonymous, in reply to Carolyn Hax, The Washington Post

“Once you’ve spoken the saddest part of your story, you can be free of it.”  Taylor Swift

“The sooner you learn that “direct” and “mean” are not synonymous, the better for your entire relationship future.”  Carolyn Hax, The Washington Post

“I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.”  C.S. Lewis

“Sometimes we are just the  collateral damage in someone else’s war against themselves.”  Lauren Eden 

“Great art is not a matter of presenting one side or another, but presenting a picture so full of the contradictions, tragedies, [and] insights of the period that the impact is at once disturbing and satisfying.”  Pauli Murray

“Someday you ll look back  and understand why it all  happened the way it did.”  Unknown

Captain Davenport: “They’re pinging away with their active sonar like they’re looking for something, but nobody’s listening.”
Jack Ryan: “What do you mean?”
Captain Davenport: “Well, they’re moving at almost forty knots. At that speed, they could run right over my daughter’s stereo and not hear it.”
Jack Ryan: “They’re not trying to find Ramius, they’re trying to drive him.”  Hunt for Red October

“This is a man who thinks with his heart
His heart is not always wise
This is a man who stumbles and falls
But this is a man who tries
This is a man you’ll forgive and forgive
And help protect, as long as you live
He will not always say, what you would have him say
But now and then he’ll say something wonderful
The thoughtless things he’ll do, will hurt and worry you
And all at once he’ll do something wonderful
He has a thousand dreams that won’t come true
You know that he believes in them, and that’s enough for you
You’ll always go along defend him when he’s wrong
And tell him, when he’s strong he is wonderful
He’ll always need your love and so he’ll get your love
A man who needs your love can be wonderful”  Something Wonderful soundtrack, The King and I (1956) and Promising Young Woman (2020)

“Sometimes these cuts are so much deeper than they seem
You’d rather cover up, I’d rather let them bleed
So let me be, and I’ll set you free”  Maroon 5

“We’re storytelling creatures by nature, and we tell ourselves story after story until we come up with an explanation that we like, and that sounds reasonable enough to believe.
And when the story portrays us in a more glowing and positive light, so much the better.” Dan Ariely

“People only see the decision you made, not the choices you had.” Itachi Uchiha, Naruto.

“You have no idea what happens in a marriage unless you’re in it. And sometimes not even then.” Carolyn Hax, Washington Post

“Being happy with yourself, within yourself, gives you the resources to help other people, and that’s what’s most important in the world.”  Cara Delevigne

“It’s odd how we live in stories and legends today, even among so much information.”  Rozinante2, Washington Post Comments

“I’m here to remind you
Of the mess you left when you went away
It’s not fair to deny me
Of the cross I bear that you gave to me
You, you, you oughta know”  Alanis Morissette

“Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it.”  Jonathan Swift, 1710

“As for what you model for your
18-year-old, it isn’t just the conduct of your marriage she’ll learn from. It’s the conduct of your emotional life. Respect and self-respect, awareness and self-awareness, assertiveness without bullying, and emotional regulation without crossing over into repression all are visible from the outside.

That display of emotional health can
include reflective listening, where you absorb what your daughter says about her life and her relationships, and then restate it to her as your understanding of what she said – while saving guidance for when she asks. Feeling heard and understood is the key to feeling loved more so than being nurtured, influenced, corrected or advised just so. (Alas.) When you show her that respect, you help her recognize it – or its absence from her partners and friends.” Carolyn Hax  (Oh, how I wish I discovered Carolyn Hax ANY time sooner than I did.)

“The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity.”  Jakob Burckhardt

“Me and who you say I was yesterday
Have gone our separate ways” Used to be Young, Miley Cirus

“It’s 2AM and I’m still awake writing a song If I get it all down on paper, it’s no longer inside of me threatening the life it belongs to
And I feel like l’m naked in front of the crowd ‘Cause these words are my diary screaming out loud
And I know that you’ll use them however you want to

But you can’t jump the track, we’re like cars on a cable
And life’s like an hourglass glued to the table No one can find the rewind button now Sing it if you understand”  Anna Nalick