A Quote by Joan Didion

It occurs to me that we allow ourselves to imagine only such messages as we need to survive. — © Joan Didion
It occurs to me that we allow ourselves to imagine only such messages as we need to survive.
Marketers want to get their messages in front of you. They must get their messages in front of you, just to survive. The only problem is-do you really want more marketing messages?
We are what we have been told about ourselves. We are the sum of the messages we have received. The true messages. The false messages.
No matter how qualified or deserving we are, we will never reach a better life until we can imagine it for ourselves and allow ourselves to have it.
We started our company out of a need to survive, but we've built it based on a mission not only to help others survive but to prosper. In fact, we view ourselves as a mission with a business, rather than a business with a mission.
God loves us; we need only to summon up the humility to allow ourselves to be loved.
Total physical and mental inertia are highly agreeable, much more so than we allow ourselves to imagine. A beach not only permits such inertia but enforces it, thus neatly eliminating all problems of guilt. It is now the only place in our overly active world that does.
We need to ask ourselves what kind of systems and structures we want in place - not only for people to survive, but also to thrive and reach their full potential.
Not only did we survive AIDS, Reaganomics, poverty, racism, gang violence, police brutality, substance abuse - not only did we survive that, we created something endured. And whatever you might think of commercial hip hop now, there's a lot there to like and there's a lot there to critique and there's a lot of things you could say both about. But we created something that endured when we ourselves were not supposed to endure. When we ourselves were not supposed to survive and thrive. So I think that is worthy of respect and preservation and it's US history.
After the initial critical learning period of youth is over, the areas of the brain that need to be 'turned on' to allow enhanced, long lasting learning can only be activated when something important, surprising, or novel occurs, or if we make the effort to pay close attention.
The real question is how do you survive at the same time you pose those risks? Because you need to survive. And it seems to me that you survive in community or in solidarity, with others who are taking the risk with you.
Ultimately I look at the long-term goal of communicating messages. Although I've seen some traumatic things, delivering messages of comfort and closure allow for a sense of peace.
If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
Trying to change ourselves doesn't work in the long run because we're resisting our own energy. Self-improvemen t can have temporary results, but lasting transformation occurs only when we honor ourselves as the source of wisdom and compassion.
There are studies that have shown that we make decisions, ethical and otherwise, based on the way we imagine ourselves as characters in the stories of our lives. In other words, if we imagine ourselves brave or crazy or open, we're more likely to make decisions in a given situation based on how we imagine ourselves, whatever the facts may be.
Let us pause before the Child of Bethlehem. Let us allow our hearts to be touched, let us allow ourselves to be warmed by the tenderness of God; we need his caress. God is full of love: to him be praise and glory forever! God is peace: let us ask him to help us to be peacemakers each day, in our life, in our families, in our cities and nations, in the whole world. Let us allow ourselves to be moved by God's goodness.
From childhood on, both males and females learn to do whatever we need to do to get the attention we need to survive. We fashion ourselves accordingly. And then, should that attention ever go away, it's only natural to do the same things we've always done, rely on what we've always relied on, in order to make it come back.
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