A Quote by Leon Panetta
I suddenly realized at the CIA that I had to make life-and-death decisions about people.
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That is the great thing about policing, you do have a lot of responsibility very early and you have got to make decisions, sometimes life and death decisions, very quickly and there is something about putting a uniform on and thinking 'people are looking to me to make decisions and to look after them' that makes you feel capable.
The more we learn, the more we will be confronted with decisions that we've never had to make before about life, about death, about parenting.
The CIA is absolutely out of control. The CIA has been on a killing spree... The CIA has become a death squad and to see these films [ like Zero Dark Thirty] get so much acclaim at the time when the CIA is in its rogue killing phase is very disturbing.
In the book [Today Matters] I talk about successful people make important decisions early in their life, and then they manage those decisions the rest of their life.
I had a horrible life habit that I had to change. And I think it's very true, the later we make decisions in life that are important, the harder it is to manage those decisions.
We deliberate about the parcels of life, but not about life itself, and so we arrive all unawares at its different epochs, and have the trouble of beginning all again. And so finally it is that we do not walk as men confidently towards death, but let death come suddenly upon us.
Most of us think that decisions such as where shall I live, with whom shall I partner, what shall I pick as a career for my life are the most important decisions that we make. But from the point of view of the universe these decisions are not that important. Within you, you have already made decisions about who you are, what the universe is and how you will relate to other people and how you will relate to the universe and these decisions are creating consequences in your life moment by moment.
I think I was lucky to be a little older when I became famous. But still, the shock of the world starting to treat you in a weird way... I had come from the army, where we had to deal with life or death, and suddenly, people were asking whether you were cool or not. I have never cared about whether I'm cool.
People are trying to build a society where they can talk across the aisle so to speak, and have civil discourse. At the same time we're trying to inform ourselves about what's really true so that we can make evidence based decisions that is better than superstition or rumor. But the fact is that people who use evidence based decision making have much better life outcomes, greater life satisfaction, they live longer, they make better personal and medical decisions, better financial decisions. But parallel to that is you can't reason somebody out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
You realize that these accidental decisions you make about changing jobs, about moving into an apartment where you make new friends and confidants, about going to one city over another, that sometimes they're completely arbitrary decisions that you haven't put as much thought into as perhaps you should have, and yet they change the course of your whole life.
We have to allow people in the states to make their own decisions, to get government agencies out of the way and let local people make decisions about what's best for them.
I had individuals in my life to help me make the right decisions because it wasn't about them accepting handouts. It was about them making the right decisions for me.
I had individuals in my life to help me make the right decisions because it wasn't about them accepting handouts. It was about them making the right decisions for me.
Many people avoid talking about death, but it never bothered me. The principal of my high school was an excellent teacher. One day he was writing on the blackboard when he suddenly turned around and said 'Life is a great adventure and death is the greatest adventure of all,' then went back to the board. I have never feared death since then.
My perspective on life is now to try to play music that reflects that life and death are part of the same coin. And to know about life, we must really examine the function - like death. Life tells you a lot about what death is, not what people say it is.
There are many ways of encouraging people to make life better other than joining a political party. Politics with a small 'p' isn't just about darkened committee rooms, endless meetings - it is about giving people the right to make decisions about our lives.
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