Inspirational Quotes 102

Be yourself, be spontaneous, live in the moment, there are no rules any more, don't copy other people:

KIDS
Allowing a student with a hidden disability (ADHD, Anxiety, Dyslexia) to struggle academically or socially when all that is needed for success are appropriate accommodations and explicit instruction, is no different than failing to provide a ramp for a person in a wheelchair.

Using the right amount of eye contact, knowing when to say the right thing and gauging the tone of a conversation... You can teach your child to be better at social interaction. Techniques include encouraging kids to think about how other people view their behaviour, practising conversation and thinking about what it takes to be a good friend. (Times 2019)

“I moved to another state boarding school in Norfolk. I was really on my own then. I had a choice to sink or swim, basically.” At school, when he saw boys who were popular, he worked out what it was about their behaviour that made them so. Ditto with forceful boys who always got what they wanted. “I suppose it is a bit of cod psychology to say I was learning to take on a role. But there was no safety net.” (Times Sept 2019)

All kids benefit from being taught social skills and an understanding of emotional literacy... my son likes to have a few 'scripts' for specific situations...starting and ending conversations is hard so we script that. (CH via Facebook)

They train you to be socially retarded. (Cult escapee)

I see too many kids who are smart and did well in school, but they’re not getting a job because when they were young, they didn’t learn any work skills. They’ve got no life skills. The parents thinks, ‘Oh, poor Tommy. He has autism so he doesn’t have to learn things like shopping.” Temple Grandin was raised by her mother in the 1950’s, a time when social skills were “pounded into every single child. Children in my generation, when they were teenagers, they had jobs and learned how to work. I cleaned horse stalls. When I was 8 years old, my mother made me be a party hostess – shake hands, take coats, etc. In the 1950s, social skills were taught in a much more rigid way so kids who were mildly autistic were forced to learn them. It hurts the autistic much more than it does the normal kids to not have these skills formally taught.” (harrietsepq.wordpress.com)

One 18th century German child-raising book said: "These first years have, among other things, the advantage that one can use force and compulsion. With age children forget everything they encountered in their early childhood. Thus if one can take away children's will, they will not remember afterward that they had had a will." (Wikipedia)

Childhood leaves a lasting imprint on our lives. (Unicef)

You carry forever the fingerprint that comes from being under someone's thumb. (Nancy Banks Smith)

Good mental health is about being with your friends, and feeling valued. (Pundit on BBC Breakfast)

Middle school is the point in life where we start trying to figure out who we are... We eat our lunch with people we hate just to feel included; it’s the time our self-esteem is at its lowest; it’s the time we try so desperately to fit into a clique, only to realize that we never truly will. (Publicsource.org)

When you create a reality for a child, they have no reference points. There was no competing narrative. (Ben, who was raised in a closed doomsday cult until he was 15)

At the time, I was unaware that there was anything to cope with, because it was my life and I had nothing to compare it to, so I just sort of battered through and got on with it. (GC)



ADULTS
Mental imagery helps us anticipate the future, and vivid mental pictures inject emotion into our thought processes. (BPS Digest)

“Behavioural Ecology View requires shaking off a romanticised view of human nature…that makes the face a battleground between an interior ‘authentic self’ and an external, impression-managed ‘social self’…Both ‘selves’ are illusory. We are unified organisms, and like our words, voices and gestures, our facial displays are part of our plans of action in social commerce.” (sciencedirect.com)

Uncertainty is one of the hardest things for human beings to deal with. We usually like to know where we are in the present, and what to expect in the future. We don’t want worries, doubts, or unpredictability. (Tom Shakespeare)

Abraham Maslow also claimed that people are more likely to flourish when they hold self-actualising values like spontaneity, positive self-regard, and acceptance of paradoxes. (BPS Digest)

What other people think – what is deemed to be acceptable behaviour – is probably a key determinant in shaping behaviour. (Gaby Judah, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)

There is a danger of your being generally disliked by your colleagues and subordinates because of your rough sarcastic and overbearing manner... I cannot bear that those who serve the country and yourself should not love as well as admire and respect you. Besides you won’t get the best results by irascibility and rudeness. (Mrs Churchill to Winston Churchill)

A big part of the evangelical church is "giving testimony," basically, showing off how god saved you and made you great. People become quite skilled and persuasive as they hone their story through the years. (@pattersonjeffa)

She rose at last to almost complete normality, acquiring as many Best Friends to slip an arm into, and whisper against the world in general with, as anyone else... Polishing her technique with each adventure until she had reached a consummate mastery of manner in every crisis. (Patrick Hamilton, Craven House)

I’m not sure you need much in the way of a script to say no to her—just say no and that you’re not available next time. (Danny Lavery, slate.com)

Hector Puncheon usually thought articulately, and often, indeed, conversed quite sensibly aloud with his own soul. (Dorothy Sayers, Murder Must Advertise)

Judith Hart writes out all of her outfits in advance for every one of her overseas trips, which I also do, but all of her dresses come from Liberty. (@lottelydia)

We had to learn the rules of clapping. I didn’t know there were rules for clapping. It turned out that there were rules for everything. (Rob Chapman, Ad Lib, on arriving at grammar school)

She thought a lot about what she’d say to him when they met again. (Guardian on a break-up guru)

The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement. (John Stuart Mill)

Social life is all about acting, pretending, impersonating and, where necessary, lying. (London Review of Books)

The enforcement of social norms is the fabric of a functioning society... Our findings suggest that norm enforcement can be successfully nudged and thus represent an expedient alternative to more costly, incentive-based interventions. (Eugen Dimant, University of Pennsylvania)

It's not just anger – it's any strong emotion that hasn't been sanctioned in advance by the lemmings in closest proximity. You are only allowed to raise your voice in chorus with everyone else. The moment you stand alone, do something different, or voice an idea of your own, you're toast. (Via FB)

I lie by embellishing a story that, with a little added glitter, makes me seem a more interesting person than I actually am. (Amazon book reviewer)

Nice people are more likely to share epistemically suspicious beliefs (like ‘naturopathy works’), because they want to show others how nice they are—so not quite irrational, and may explain the success of these beliefs. (@koenfucius)

Suffering on its own doesn’t lead to strength, just like demanding someone to lift a 300-pound weight doesn’t build muscle mass. Independence, like muscle, requires careful training on the trainee’s terms. Without that, all you get are serious injuries. (@golvio)

I learned the facts about myself, as unpleasant facts often are learned, by overhearing two girl friends talk about me. (20s deodorant ad)


YOU’LL BE STRONGER ON YOUR OWN
Based on the optimistic belief that love, as opposed to fame and fortune, is out there for everyone, the producers have done a great job matching up potential partners. (Times Sept 2019)

I live in a tiny studio with no significant other, a good but low-paying job, and little to no idea about
how to change either of those. At a year younger than me, my brother has already purchased his own house, settled into a well-paying government position with a ton of upward mobility, found a life partner, and started his own company. (Dear Prudie, slate.com)


LOOKS DON’T MATTER
The best liars are often highly intelligent, quick-witted – and attractive. “The hotter you are, the more you can get away with.” (Times review of Duped, by Abby Elllin, Jan 2019)

I make sure to dress appropriately and conservatively, wear makeup, and keep my hair short in an effort to look the part. (A young lawyer.)

Unattractiveness is probably the leading axis along which there is discrimination in our society, but it’s the least studied. Sexual advances are more likely to be treated as harassment by coworkers, and complaints of pain less likely to be taken seriously by doctors. (@NAChristakis)

Anna, a 30-year-old student based in Philadelphia: “I lost a ton of weight in my early 20s and started taking care of my appearance, and suddenly, the world got so much kinder.” (Melmagazine.com)

What no one tells you about major weight loss is the way that everyone treats you differently. Strangers will meet your eyes, smile back, laugh at your jokes. (Humanparts.medium.com)

I’m still processing how much better people treat me now that I’m thin. (slate.com)

Miss X was denied promotions and a partnership because she didn’t look, dress, or behave in a stereotypically feminine enough manner. Her bosses instructed her to wear more makeup and skirts to work in order to get the promotion. (Vox.com)

Writer Madeleine St John started off as an actress. But “Her odd appearance contrived to prevent her performing in anything other than minor theatrical roles.” She and her boyfriend had lived in San Francisco for a few years, where he studied film. Once his course was completed they decided to go to London. Madeleine went on ahead but "he never arrived". (From the introduction to her book The Women in Black.)

“I would show up at departmental council meetings with black makeup and pigtails, a mini skirt and ripped tights. No one gave me a dime of funding, not with that look.” (Getpocket.com. From a story about the regeneration of a village emptied to create a dam – it was never flooded but just fell to ruins. She also says “Some people have been angry for 50 years.”)

Traditionally “attractive” people earn more money; taller men are afforded more respect. (Culturico.com)

She is met by sneering indifference... until she gets a Keith Richards style haircut. (Will Hodgkinson on Patti Smith’s memoirs, Times 2020)

You get a simple portrait of a proud, attractive, successful man who has gotten used to being attractive and successful ... and in having things more or less his own way. (Theinvisibleevent.com on Ira Levin’s A Kiss Before Dying)

The fact is, if you are not seen as conventionally attractive, you are treated differently. Your experiences of socialising are different. (Romesh Ranganathan)

One consultant I know body-builds in his spare time, and when he’s not having to look official he prefers to wear T-shirts that leave his muscular arms exposed. In T-shirt mode, he says that commissionaires in office receptions treat him with indifference, scarcely raising their gaze, pushing passes across the desk: “Here you go, mate.” Commuters give him a wide berth on the Tube; nobody smiles. In restaurants waiters or waitresses rarely attempt to charm. Service everywhere tends to be brusque and a little wary. People assume that since he’s presenting physical strength rather than professional status he won’t offer or expect the courtesies of that world. In a suit it is a different story. Receptionists smile, say “Good morning, sir”, and hold barriers open for him. Old women ask him to carry their cases up stairs on the London Underground. Waiters beam, are solicitous, act out the hospitality ritual in the confidence that it will be appreciated and reciprocated. They understand his role and so does he. (Jenni Russell, Times)

AUTISM
I’ve always put my child in a lower age group for extracurricular stuff.,. she’s small for her age so it doesn’t notice. She’s much happier with kids a few years younger and can keep up. (Via FB)

I do the "I'm OK" face all the time, so when I'm not OK, I just get accused of faking or being over dramatic. (Via FB)

The qualities routinely assigned to autistic people – lack of empathy, unworldliness, humourlessness, the inability to love – are the exact inverse of the qualities that a neurotypical society most prizes... DSM’s descriptions appear to favour the offence to the sensibilities of the practitioner over the challenges faced by the autistic subject. They highlight effect over cause. (Aeon.com)

Be careful before insulting someone with Asperger’s. We have very detailed, very specific memories. And we take them everywhere, all the time. (Autisticnotweird.com)


POSITIVITY
You might not be depressed, you might just have a really terrible life. (Jordan Peterson)

The "positivity" cult is a tool of oppression by the privileged. They want you to suffer and say nothing about it. (@JonSM99)

There’s a lot of value placed on forgiveness in religious settings, as well as in a secular therapeutic context, but all too often what that means is that someone who was victimized or harmed in a profound way is encouraged to paper over their pain, offer unearned absolution, and perform happiness. (Danny Lavery)

Positivity has to have some basis in reality or it’s just delusion. I didn’t get where I am through being negative, trust me, but my positivity is based on consideration of facts. (@DeborahMeaden)

MISCELLANEOUS
People look out for their peer group. I don't think we (oldies) become invisible so much as other peer groups become unaware of us and we of them. (SF)

Fifteen years ago an outgoing couple I know sold up in Newcastle and joined the grey migration to Port Macquarie, but three years later they were back. "We couldn't make any friends", the retired business manager told me... It's perverse that those who especially need a friend can be too earnest to form a friendship readily. Just as it is much easier to get a job when you have a job, it is much easier to make a friend when you have a friend. (Theherald.com.au)

For me, home means an accepting and non-judgemental place. (St Mungo’s spokesperson)

“Judging” isn’t the worst thing a person can do to another; if you saw her do something you think is wrong, judging is a pretty appropriate response. (Danny Lavery)

If you can't understand why someone is doing something, look at the consequences of their actions, whatever they might be, and then infer the motivations from their consequences. For example if someone is making everyone around them miserable and you'd like to know why, their motive may simply be to make everyone around them miserable, including themselves. (Jordan Peterson)

Even when a secret is kept, its existence carries an aura of unease that most people can sense. (Social worker)

This “model of the self as independent and freely choosing” is so pervasive in middle-class U.S. culture that it’s invisible. (JSTOR Daily)

More here, and links to the rest.