Focus Within Quotes & Sayings

I have a plan, and I'm following it. I can focus on doing what is within my control, and I don't need to be afraid of the results. — Elizabeth Grace Saunders

Champions get up! When you're down to nothing, God is up to something! Champions get up! Focus your mind, pull yourself together. If you are at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on! You are a champion. You are more than a conqueror. Keep the faith. Cry if you must. You are still here. God is not through with you yet. You were born to win. Champions get up! You are a champion. You have GREATNESS within you! — Les Brown

Sometimes, I think, when you don't know how to take another step for yourself, you have to focus on someone else, and take the step for them. Live for them. Be strong for them, even when you have so much within yourself in need of healing. — Jasinda Wilder

As the chapters took shape, a change came over her. It was the double-sided recognition that this book, the last that she would write, might achieve esteem and success equal to her great novel, but that its emotional heart would lie in her own unhappiness for having failed to find the one thing she wanted. For the first time she was a character in her own writing, and her frailties and mistakes were trapped on the page by the beauty and unsparing focus of her prose. Towards the end it was a battle to finish a page. The story was the story she had told herself for decades, deep within her own mind, and now as it grew, line by line, on the paper before her, she wrestled with each turn in the path all over again, as if it were still possible to change its course with the power of her words. — Frederick Weisel

No one escapes suffering. Everyone goes through tough times. Suffering is a part of our human condition and cannot be avoided. Setbacks, failures, pain, suffering, and hardships are all a part of life, but whether we are able to find peace within the storm depends on our resilience and perseverance. Whenever one of our children tells us that they don't want to fail at something, we remind them that there will be times in their life when they will fail, but it's how they come through it that matters. If we choose to focus on the negative, the failure itself, the darkness will oppress and consume us. Eventually it will destroy a person. We need to embrace the fact that we're human and our lives will be filled with suffering and hardship, but we have the ultimate hope and victory in Our Lord. — Karen Santorum

The war you feel within - that restlessness, the unending uncertainty - is not to be dismissed, avoided, hated. That internal conflict is not dark, it is a beaming light trying to focus you, the rolling thunderous call of courage, the rays of greatness seeking to explode beyond your skin to touch once more the Spirit of Possibility. — Brendon Burchard

Focus on guilt will always breed fear, and focus on innocence will always breed love. Any time we project guilt onto someone else, we are fortifying the experience of guilt within ourselves. Like blood on Lady MacBeth's hands, we cannot remove our own guilty feelings as long as we are judging others. — Marianne Williamson

Nothing will change if you blame. Rather it will aggravate negative emotions within you. Don't waste your time blaming. — Maddy Malhotra

Our focus needs to be on freeing dissidents and continuing to support the opposition movement within Cuba - not rewarding Castro and subsidizing and strengthening his totalitarian regime. — Mel Martinez

I went through a period of great rebellion within my family, when I was about 9 or 10. I was mad, I had no focus, had no real interest in anything, and so I started to do things that were just rebellious and stupid. — Kevin Spacey

Adam Gottbetter goes beyond the original usage of focus groups when they are used within communication studies to explore the effects of films and television programs. — Adam Gottbetter

I would like to focus on the use of the word silly for a particular people's point of views. Everybody has what is called a plausibility structure; we all have sets of background beliefs through which we process and assess evidence. When you call something silly, you are merely saying, 'Relative to my plausibility structure that isn't within that structure.' That's merely a comment on your own psychology, there's nothing more to it so I don't find that very helpful," (Randal Rauser, Unbelieveable Feb. 1, 2014). — Randal Rauser

Gaining satisfaction through accomplishments is and will always be a slippery slope, because there will come a time when you realize you have accomplished all that is within your power to accomplish in the realm of good, and will have nowhere else to turn but to the realms of greed and powerlust to find the satisfaction you crave. — A.J. Darkholme

The side effect of expanding consciousness is that negativity starts to evaporate; it goes away like darkness when you turn on a light. Many students have so much torment, stress, depression, sorrow and hate in them these days, but then they get this technique and the negativity starts to go away. They start to feel good because the torment is leaving. Their health gets better and they get happier, their comprehension and their ability to focus grow, their grades go up and a joy for life grows; all of which comes from within. — David Lynch

Nothing will change if you worry. Rather it may aggravate negative emotions within you. Don't waste your time worrying. — Maddy Malhotra

A journey to make real impact that changes lives, give meaning to life and living, and turns vision of the masses into realities demands a true focus, an utmost zeal and robustness and an unfailing tenacity to do whatever necessary within the powers and reach of a true leader, and with all needed dexterity, wit and wisdom, to make real impact have a meaning and give real liberation to the masses! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Live with the thoughts and actions that empower you, not ones that weaken you. Surround yourself with people who share your values. Focus on having a positive attitude, seeking the support of friends, deepening healthy relationships with your community and environment, and always looking to find your higher self within. — Brant Secunda

leap in the ability to process and data. For the sake of simplicity, this book will focus on the recent past to discuss various stages where information technology, norms, practices, and rules combined to allow for data gathering and sharing within an enterprise and with individuals. Framing and noting the various risks and opportunities within various stages in the Information Age creates a context for the ensuing discussion surrounding the mission and purpose of the privacy engineer and the call to action for the privacy engineer's manifesto, as presented later in this book. — Michelle Finneran Dennedy

There's not a lot of room anymore for what I call 'made-up' drama. The drama comes from real places now - marriage takes work and focus, the kid stuff takes patience and commitment. And if you don't grow as people and as a couple, within all of that, then you've got some real drama. — Jeremy Sisto

If none of your role models provide the answer, then it is time to go within and ask yourself, "What would make me happy?" In other words, let your feelings guide you. This doesn't work well if you focus narrowly on your personal needs. I am not talking about selfishness or self-interest. When I ask, What will make you happy?, I mean, What way of loving others feels right for you? Choose a way of loving that makes you happy, and your efforts will be play rather than work. — Bernie Siegel

You have got to compete with them ... you have to be working toward a future of your own. A picture of the future of your own that is contradictory to theirs, in which the things that they want to do have no place because you have been so successful at promoting the idea of sex within marriage ... focus on transforming the society to be reinforcing of all these ideas ... everywhere ... When you do that then you create a climate in which these things really cannot get very far. — Scott Lively

This is the way we stimulate neuronal activation and growth - how we SNAG the brain toward a more vertically integrated state as we connect body to cortex with interoception. The more we focus our attention toward bodily sensations within our subjective experience in awareness, the more we activate the physical correlate of insula activation and subsequent growth. As — Daniel J. Siegel

The obsessive focus on a college degree has served neither taxpayers nor students well. Only 35 percent of students starting a four-year degree program will graduate within four years, and less than 60 percent will graduate within six years. Students who haven't graduated within six years probably never will. — Alex Tabarrok

Whilst personal effectiveness focuses more on your personal development goals as you become the best practitioner in your area of specialty; leadership excellence shifts the focus to your leadership development in making a difference to the greater circle within your areas of influence and beyond. Leadership excellence focuses on areas of concern on behalf of others because a leader is expected to grow from personal effectiveness to begin making a significant impact on the world around them. — Archibald Marwizi

In the environment in which we evolved, the careful choice of a mate was critical to a female's success in passing on her genes. If her man was not strong enough to be a successful hunter, or not of sufficiently high rank within the tribe to commandeer food from others, her children might be in trouble. The women who were reproductively successful were those with a sexual preference for effective providers. A kind of erotic "tunnel vision" was selected for, which causes women to focus their mating effort on the men at the top of the pack - the "alpha males" with good physical endowments, social rank, and economic resources (or an ability to acquire them). — F. Roger Devlin

Symbolic interactionists stress that to understand poverty we must focus on what
poverty means to people. When people evaluate where they are in life, they compare
themselves with others. In some rural areas, simple marginal living is the norm, and
people living in these circumstances don't feel poor. But in Leslie's cosmopolitan circle,
people can feel deprived if they cannot afford the latest upscale designer clothing from
their favorite boutique. The meaning of poverty, then, is relative: What poverty is differs
from group to group within the same society, as well as from culture to culture and from
one era to the next. — James M. Henslin

I have just awoken, having dreamed of music. The final chord fades away within me while I try to focus on individuals amid the living, breathing mass packed into this vast waiting room, in this mixture of sleep and weariness. — Andrei Makine

When chemists artificially produce an amino acid or a sugar they almost always synthesize only a single product at a time, which they manage by carefully controlling the experimental conditions for the selected reaction, such as temperature and the concentrations of the various ingredients, to optimize the synthesis of their target compound. This is not an easy task and requires careful control of many different conditions inside customized flasks, condensers, separation columns, filtration devices and other elaborate chemical apparatus. Yet every living cell in your body is continually synthesizing thousands of distinct biochemicals within a reaction chamber filled with just a few millionths of a microliter of fluid.*7 How do all those diverse reactions proceed concurrently? And how is all this molecular action orchestrated within a microscopic cell? These questions are the focus of the new science of systems biology; but it is fair to say that the answers remain mysterious! — Johnjoe McFadden

Here's the thing about close combat in real life: It's almost always over in a matter of seconds. Not like in the movies, where your hero has the luxury to strategize and maneuver and grapple for minutes on end. Fortunately, when your life is in danger, your brain kicks in. Deep inside your brain this little almond-shaped gland called the amygdala sends out the signal to make your body start pumping out dopamine and adrenaline and cortisol. Time seems to slow, your focus sharpens, you suddenly start perceiving way more stimuli than normal. Neurologists call this tachypsychia. Everyone else calls it the fight-or-flight response. Cavemen who didn't have it got eaten by saber-toothed tigers. So I made a quick decision. I could either be incapacitated by a Taser, or I could put myself within the reach of Bondarchuk's fists. No choice. — Joseph Finder

I think Canadians are tired of politicians that are spun and scripted within an inch of their life, people who are too afraid of what a focus group might say about one comment or a political opponent might try to twist out of context, to actually say much of anything at all. — Justin Trudeau

A sensible way to begin a discussion of that greater good is to focus on the current conditions within the human family and on the state of the larger living world. — Robert Jensen

True freedom lies within how and if we choose to fly,
Perhaps I need to focus on flying, — Nicole Renee Wyatt

God's impressions within and His Word without are always corroborated by His providence around, and we should quietly wait until these three focus into one point. ... If you do not know what you ought to do, stand still until you do. — Priscilla Shirer

I am closer to who I want to be when I am alone lately. With people, I hear my voice and I just wonder who or what I'm doing all this for. Spreading myself out in front of people. Devaluing my ostensible worth by being so readily available to almost any random pedestrian who wanders into the crosswalk of my focus. If someone is within an earshot I shoot off at the mouth. — Carrie Fisher

The successful golfers - they're like astronauts or pilots. They have that demeanor that they can focus and stay within that one moment and nothing distracts them. That's not me. — Ray Romano

Yoga did not just help me with my body, I became fitter from within. It helped me to focus better. In the movies, we may look very glamourous and fit, but believe me, not many of us are actually fit from within. Yoga has helped me achieve that. — Shilpa Shetty

'The 25th Hour' came out of the decision - a really very conscious decision - that I needed a story set within a compressed time frame because that would help focus the story. — David Benioff

To me, pre-match preparation is extremely important because that's something which is within my control. — Sachin Tendulkar

Some of us enter deconstruction willingly. We sat through too many church services that made us queazy with songs-with-words-we-stopped-feeling-good-about-singing, predictable messages, certainty, and focus on belief instead of practice. Something stirred within us, and we started asking the questions swirling around in our head. Others of us were pushed into deconstruction by wounding church experiences. We saw one too many inconsistencies, abuses of power, or crazy-stuff-that-only-insiders-sometimes-see that pushed us over the edge and called everything into question. — Gerardo Marti

In truth, food (within reason, don't go overboard) and beverages (non-alcoholic, we need our brains sober) are encouraged- not only because they lift the mood and help the intellect to focus, but also because it is hard to feel hostile towards someone you share bread with. — Elif Shafak

To comprehend Crowley, one must comprehend what he meant by "Magick" - the "discredited" tradition he swore to "rehabilitate."
Magick, for Crowley, is a way of life that takes in every facet of life. The keys to attainment within the magical tradition lie in the proper training of the human psyche itself - more specifically, in the development of the powers of will and imagination. The training of the will - which Crowley so stressed, thus placing himself squarely within that tradition - is the focusing of one's energy, one's essential being. The imagination provides, as it were, the target for this focus, by its capacity to ardently envision - and hence bring into magical being - possibilities and states beyond those of consensual reality. The will and imagination must work synergistically. For the will, unilluminated by imagination, becomes a barren tool of earthly pursuits. And the imagination, ungoverned by a striving will, lapses into idle dreams and stupor. — Lawrence Sutin

KEEP YOUR EYES ON ME ! Waves of adversity are washing over you, and you feel tempted to give up. As your circumstances consume more and more of your attention, you are losing sight of Me. Yet I am with you always, holding you by your right hand. I am fully aware of your situation, and I will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able to bear. Your gravest danger is worrying about tomorrow. If you try to carry tomorrow's burdens today, you will stagger under the load and eventually fall flat. You must discipline yourself to live within the boundaries of today. It is in the present moment that I walk close to you, helping you carry your burdens. Keep your focus on My Presence in the present. — Sarah Young

Fear
Only
Constraints
Undeveloped
Strength
where your eyes look to within,
is what your heart will believe. — Anthony Liccione

We're at this really unique time, I think, in trans representation in popular culture where homelessness, depression, mental health issues, instability-in-general are still so very real and need to be talked about, but we're aware that they've dominated "trans" stories for years and years.

And we're now finally at a place where we're seeing some really positive representations of trans folks in pop culture, and there's this new pressure -- at least, I feel it, within trans and trans-ally communities -- to only focus on the positive. Because we're trying, in some sense, to overcompensate for the years and years of too much negativity. As a writer, you might feel a pressure to push the negative stuff away. But there are consequences for that too. Anyone who's working with trans characters right now is going to have to reconcile that tension. — Mitch Kellaway

Keep making a difference out there! Don't let the noise around you distract you from listening to the voice within you. — Farshad Asl

Silence introduced in a society that worships noise is like the Moon exposing the night. Behind darkness is our fear. Within silence our voice dwells. What is required from both is that we be still. We focus. We listen. We see and we hear. The unexpected emerges. — Terry Tempest Williams

Life in general you gotta believe in you ... you live your life for you, you do what you do for you, because the moment you start to live your life for others you'll lose yaself within that. Focus on what it is you want to have. Go get it. — Trey Songz

Many [business] people focus on what is static, black and white. Yet great algorithms can be rewritten. A business process can be defined better. A business model can be copied. But the speed of execution is dynamic within you and can never be copied. When you have an idea, figure out the pieces you need quickly, go to market, believe in it, and continue to iterate. — Gurbaksh Chahal

Attention is a resource as abundant as sunlight. It streams outward all day long whether we choose to tap into it or not. By developing conscious focus of our attention, we learn to harness one of the greatest creative powers available to humankind, one that happens to be freely available within ourselves at all times. — Scott Edmund Miller

If you focus on changing or cultivating keystone habits, you can cause widespread shifts. However, identifying keystone habits is tricky. To find them, you have to know where to look. Detecting keystone habits means searching out certain characteristics. Keystone habits offer what is known within academic literature as "small wins." They help other habits to flourish by creating new structures, and they establish cultures where change becomes contagious. But as O'Neill and countless others have found, crossing the gap between understanding those principles and using them requires a bit of ingenuity. — Charles Duhigg

When Jesus's followers asked him to teach them to pray, he didn't tell them to divide into focus groups and look deep within their own hearts. — N. T. Wright

Lou could imagine Rich hiding within. She closed her eyes, letting her mind wander, search, and finally focus on him. Hurry up, Rich, she thought. Feeling the tug of connection, a thrill of anticipation ran up her spine. Lou didn't let herself nudge events often, but she did it today. — Danika Stone

We have to make sure that not only we [politicians] actually focus on, but the entire nation knows we're focusing on, growth and competition within the United States of America and compete internationally. I don't know anywhere where it's written that we have to be number two. — Joe Biden

For leaders to get results they need all three kinds of focus. Inner focus attunes us to our intuitions, guiding values, and better decisions. Other focus smooths our connections to the people in our lives. And outer focus lets us navigate in the larger world. A leader tuned out of his internal world will be rudderless; one blind to the world of others will be clueless; those indifferent to the larger systems within which they operate will be blindsided. — Daniel Goleman

The adult within me would be much wiser to learn from the child within me rather than focus on the demand that the child within me grow up. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Why do we read with greed? (Or play, or design, etc.?) We want to fill our minds with knowledge the way others want to fill their bellies with food. Information replaces confusion, which many of us experience in interactions with others. It is a place to focus, apart from all the external stimuli in our homes, schools, shops, etc. It is completely within our control how much we want to let in, unlike dealing with people, who are unpredictable and uncontrollable. (Even those of us who are in our own bubble, who don't read or seem to look outward much, may have a rich internal world and not yet have such a need to connect.) — Rudy Simone

As a Jew, I recognize the importance of Israel historically, liturgically: its place in our history and in our sacred texts. I fully recognize and appreciate that. I just think that, for me, a sole focus on Israel gets in the way of the pursuit of a relationship with God and a more spiritual existence within Judaism. — David Gregory

No one has two white angelic wings. We are all confronted one day with the reality of having blackened our morals. Instead of trying to figure out what others are in search of within you, focus on yourself and no longer be inactive. They too are facing their own demons, so let them do so by themselves. You can help them but you cannot choose for them. — Kia Carrington-Russell

The good news from the U.S. military survey of focus groups is that Iraqis do accept the Nuremberg principles. They understand that sectarian violence and the other postwar horrors are contained within the supreme international crime committed by the invaders. — Noam Chomsky

Make it a habit to ask yourself: What's going on inside me at this moment? That question will point you in the right direction. But don't analyze, just watch. Focus your attention within. Feel the energy of the emotion. If there is no emotion present, take your attention more deeply into the inner energy field of your body. It is the doorway into Being. — Eckhart Tolle

Even within traditional universities there has always been debate about whether it wouldn't be better to focus on only one course at a time. — Philip Greenspun

Focus your intention on what your building, not whats already fallen away. — Nikki Rowe

No one likes to feel used. When the perceived focus becomes the content over the person, people feel used. When teachers are valued only for the test scores of their students, they feel used. When administrators are "successful" only when they achieve "highly effective school" status, they feel used. Eventually, "used" people lose joy in learning and teaching. Curriculum does not teach; teachers do. Standards don't encourage; administrators do. Peaceable schools value personnel and students for who they are as worthy human beings. ... If your mission statement says you care, then specific practices of care should be habits within your school. — Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz

But one thing that we have done in the last four years is we have really put pressure on the leadership of this organization [Al Qaeda]. We have killed a significant number of leaders. We've captured others. Those that remain have to look over their shoulders, they have to be on the run. So that even if we don't manage to kill or capture them all within four years, what we do do is put the kind of pressure on them that makes them focus on their own skins, as opposed to carrying out attacks. — Michael Chertoff

Sex discrimination and hate crimes against women don't come from the leather community or its pornography. They occur within contexts like industrial capitalism and marriage that most people take for granted as if they had always existed, like gravity or continental drift. If feminism is going to change the world, it has to focus its critical lens on what most people think is normal, not on what most people think is abnormal. — Patrick Califia-Rice

Focus your awareness on the Divine spark of crystal-white light, sparkling within the center of your stomach area. See or feel this white spark of light, shining like a pilot light within you. This is the spark of your true essence, your shining flame from God. Feel the warmth within you, filling you completely with love and peaceful energy. — Doreen Virtue

One of the frustrations for therapists of all persuasions is the knowledge that a person's circumstances will change only if it is within that person's power to decide to make some changes, and that when the cause of her unhappiness lies with someone else, it is almost impossible to help her feel better. Rather than admitting that the task is impossible, mainstream therapies simply change the focus of the blame. When the victim is blamed, it serves to make the task of the therapist so much easier but, for the victim, such a change of focus amounts to psychoppression - that is, oppression within the context of therapy. — Betty McLellan

Energy is the currency of the universe. When you "pay" attention to something, you buy that experience. So when you allow your consciousness to focus on someone or something that annoys you, you feed it your energy, and it reciprocates with the experience of being annoyed. Be selective in your focus because your attention feeds the energy of it and keeps it alive, not just within you, but in the collective consciousness as well. — Emily Maroutian

Often our biggest distractions are not external, but come from within. Get out of your own way! — Mani S. Sivasubramanian

I tend to think my eye's vision is still 20/20, because they mind their own business. — Anthony Liccione

It fascinates me that when we lose one of our five senses, the remaining four strengthen and rally to make sense of the world we live in. Even by closing our eyes for a moment, we find ourselves paying closer attention to the sounds around us. Perhaps this is why music can resonate so deeply within us; somehow our isolated senses allow our brains the space and perspective to connect these really beautiful dots of our own hearts and souls. I wonder if the act of giving our other senses a break ca — Ryan O'Neal

Evangelism cant be our focus! We must not stop sharing the good news, but here's the deal, here's the wonderful thing, it gets done along the way as you do discipleship. Great commission is just about going to disciple the nations and you know what happens ... as you disciple them evangelism takes place, because it's done in the context of discipleship.
Here's the issue: We have to reframe evangelism within the context of discipleship — Alan Hirsch

Much more than trying to focus on the battlefield of the war, it was the central place that German doctors occupied within Nazism, the omnipotent and insane idea of wanting to generically modify an entire nation. This idea was not on the outskirts of Nazi ideology, it was the heart of movement, that's what intrigued me. Mengele is the most extreme expression of this idea. — Lucia Puenzo

I always say if I'm not good at something it's just because I've not had time to focus on it ... it's just uncrafted, like a slab of rock that contains the statue of David within it. — Michael Sheen

I take 10 minutes. I focus on what I'm most grateful for. Then I do a little prayer for three minutes, a blessing within myself through God, and then out to my family and friends and all those I serve. Then my last three minutes are the three things I want to achieve most. At the end of 10 minutes, you are wired. Everything in your life gets filtered through that. — Tony Robbins

The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations that we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us. — Audre Lorde

" ... One can learn to focus on 'opportunity' as the gift within every given moment. This attitude towards life always improves the situation. Even in times of sickness, someone who habitually practices grateful living will look for the opportunity that a given moment offers and use it creatively." — David Steindl-Rast

Her fingers flew, her fiddle was an entire orchestra, and every note beautifully brought into being struck a chord of satisfaction within her. She wondered at the unfamiliar lightness in her chest and realised she was laughing.
So great was her focus, it took her a while to register the strange expression that crept to Brocker's face as he listened, finger tapping the armrest of his chair. His eyes were fixed behind Fire and to the right, in the direction of Archer's back doorway. Fire comprehended that someone must be standing in Archer's entrance, someone Brocker watched with startled eyes.
And then everything happened at once. Fire recognised the mind in the doorway; she spun around, fiddle and bow screeching apart; she stared at Prince Brigan leaning against the door frame. — Kristin Cashore

Focus on identifying your target audience, communicating an authentic message that they want and need and project yourself as an "expert" within your niche. — Kim Garst

There are many paths to mastery, and if you are persistent you will certainly find one that suits you.
But a key component in the process is determining your mental and psychological strengths and working with them.
To rise to the level of mastery requires many hours of dedicated focus and practice. You cannot get there if your work brings you no joy and you are constantly struggling to overcome your own weaknesses.
You must look deep within and come to an understanding of these particular strengths and weaknesses you possess, being as realistic as possible. Knowing your strengths you can lean on them with utmost intensity.
Once you start in this direction, you will gain momentum. You will not be burdened by conventions and you will not be slowed down by having to deal with skills that go against your inclinations and strengths. In this way, your creative and intuitive powers will be naturally awakened. — Robert Greene

There exits within the ecclesia and among its citizens a phenomena I refer to as 'Spiritual Correctness'. Essentially it says: 'Don't say anything that could offend anyone, focus on what is right with the 'church' and its leadership, don't be critical, speak the truth in 'love', promote the status quo, don't make 'waves', don't call anyone 'out', respect 'authority', don't expose 'wrong-doing', cover those who 'spiritually abuse' others, keep it 'secret' within our family; don't ask any hard questions. Sounds exactly like the textbook definition of a highly dysfunctional family system. The only 'system' and its enablers that Jesus spoke out against vehemently was the religious system of His day and its leadership."

~R. Alan Woods [2013] — R. Alan Woods

It is best to study from a teacher of ANY subject, as long as you focus on the teachings and NOT on the teacher. All of the real important answers to life's questions lie within your own mind. — Frederick Lenz

My wife Ann and I had been digging during the day, transplanting lilies from the front of this abandoned farmhouse back down the road to where we live. We finished. She was tired and laid in the grass. I took a picture. The house is now gone. The walnut trees have been bulldozed and burned. I saw this picture the other day for the first time in years and realized how photographing life within a hundred yards of my front porch had helped me focus on everything I cared about. — Larry Towell

Rather than make claims of final theories, perhaps we should focus on our ever-continuing dialogue with the universe. It is the dialogue that matters most, not its imagined end. It is the sacred act of inquiry wherein we gently trace the experienced outlines of an ever-greater whole. It is the dialogue that lets the brilliance of the diamond's infinite facets shine clearly. It is the dialogue that instills within us a power and capacity that is, and always has been, saturated with meaning. — Adam Frank

I've learned that in order to effectively and genuinely "Change" for the better.

#1. Must want to change. (Grow)

#2. Know who we are now relative to who we want to be.

#3. Paradoxically we must except who we are in the present moment. (You are worthy right now, you are just searching for a higher a 'self')

#4. Know that "True" change comes from within the mind. To the much deeper 'self' feelings and emotions.

#5. Make no drastic changes, but focus simply on making small ones within the present moment.

Sincerely,

My present self. — Matthew Donnelly

Anything that is within someone else's reach is also within yours. Set your goals no matter how impossible they may seem. Then focus on what is between you and that goal. And then, simply take out the obstacles as they come. — Liz Murray

We can learn to trust ourselves by inquiring within. To practice doing this, sit quietly, close your eyes, and for a minute focus your attention on your breathing. Gently visualize your inner wisdom as a graceful butterfly. Admire her beauty, and encourage your butterfly to sit on your shoulder and whisper her wisdom in your ear. Be still and listen. — Sue Thoele

Mothers should tell little girls and boys about the importance of dreams,' Aunt Habiba said. 'They give a sense direction. It is not enough to reject this courtyard
you need to have a vision of the meadows with which you want to replace it.' But how, I asked Aunt Habiba, could you distinguish among all the wishes, all the cravings which besieged you, and find the one on which you ought to focus, the important dream that gave you vision? She said that little children had to be patient, the key dream would emerge and bloom within, and then, from the intense pleasure it gave you, you would know that that it was the genuine little treasure which would give you direction and light. (p. 214) — Fatema Mernissi

At times we will be asked to let go of things that we have always wanted to keep for ourselves, or things that we would never have thought that we would to have to let go of, such as the loss of a loved one or the betrayal of a dear friend. A tree never hesitates to shake off her leaves during fall, and so we must take another lesson given to us by the nature: let go when it is time. Although such losses can be difficult and painful, rise above this suffering. Focus within your mind, the image of the Lotus prospering above mud. We are the lotus; rise above. — Forrest Curran

Rider training instructors often suggest that a rider should be looking twelve seconds ahead, or the distance he or she will be covering over the next twelve seconds. That doesn't mean you should be focused only on what's happening at a point twelve seconds ahead. Instead, you should focus on everything that's going on within that twelve-second zone. — David L. Hough

All I am saying is that when you really, really like someone, when you feel like they're the only person you want to see at the end of a long day, when you've really gotten to know them and you feel like they've gotten to know you, ask them. When you're no longer interested in pursuing other relationships and other people, or when you're ready to focus your attention on one person, or when you feel like you can't stop smiling because this person sparked something within you, ask. — Kim Quindlen

We all carry the seeds of greatness within us, but we need an image as a point of focus in order that they may sprout. — Epictetus

Advice? Focus on the craft. Study the greats. Try and understand how and why they made the writing choices they did. Then, start by copying them ... just as an exercise. See if you can do similar things. Learn how to write a song like so and so. Then, when you've done that, write a song like yourself. Learn to color within the lines before going outside them. — Patrick Stump

It does not always help to analyze and think about problems with your rational mind. Sometimes it is far more effective to turn to your inner self, to ask the universe for help. Simply sit quietly. Take a few deep breaths and focus your awareness within. Ask your wise inner self, either silently or aloud, for guidance or help in understanding the message. As you get a sense of what feels right, act on this feeling. — Shakti Gawain

Eventually, a governess realized I needed spectacles. When I first put them on my face, I can't even tell you ... it was like a miracle." "Finally seeing properly?""Knowing I wasn't hopeless." A knot formed in her throat. "I'd believed there was something incurably wrong with me, you see. But suddenly, I could see the world clear. And not only the parts in the distance, but the bits within my own reach. I could focus on a page. I could explore the things around me, discover whole worlds beneath my fingertips. I could be good at something, for once. — Tessa Dare

I love telling truthful honest stories. I suppose I'd love the opportunity to be a superhero within a realistic dramatic piece. It would have opportunity for humor too of course. And ideally I would be the writer/director? (Though I suppose if I was, it is POSSIBLE I would give myself a meaty but smaller part so I could focus on the latter of my duties ... Maybe). — E.J. Bonilla

It is important and vital is to keep that education for critical consciousness around intersectionalities, so that people are able to not focus on one thing and blame one group, but be able to look holistically at the way intersectionality informs all of us: whiteness, gender, sexual preferences, etc. Only then can we have a realistic handle on the political and cultural world we live within. — Bell Hooks

The water wasn't the same down here.

Water is what runs out of the kitchen taps or a playground drinking fountain. It fills bathubs and pools and yes, of course, the ocean- but at a certain depth, water becomes a barrier from all you remember, all you think you know.

You're trapped within it, a plaything of it.

Focus erodes. Your thoughts mutate. The pressure.

The pressure.

The soul can't cope with that. It shouldn't be expected to.

Humans weren't built for this. There's a reason nothing lives down here.

Or nothing should. — Nick Cutter

Being present. The mind is like a butterfly that flits from one flower to the next. Seldom do we find ourselves nestled in the excuisite and eternal ocean of here and now. When you are, you can connect with your true self that is beyond the chattering of your mind. When you take the effort to focus your drifting consciousness to become fully awake to the present moment, you will discover the glorious light that dwells within you. — Denise Linn

Yoga is a removal of the conscious awareness from the world as you know it - the world that you've constructed - through your focus within your mind, to something else. — Frederick Lenz