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M Salinger  Jul 2018
Dear Self,
M Salinger Jul 2018
Be kind to yourself,
as you are with others

You have these
grand expectations
of yourself
and at times,
those around you

It's good to have goals
and a hunger for
betterment,
but you must also be
vigilant
to keep them realistic

Because, while you are indeed
fierce & strong-willed,
you are also soft
& at times
fragile

You are human.

But that doesn't mean
you are without
superpowers

Your sensitivity is your greatest gift,
but without care,
can also be your greatest
downfall

You must learn to master your craft.

This means to be
patient with yourself
as you would with others,
to show compassion
as you would with others,
to show love,
grace,
& humility,
to yourself

This in practice,
is to truly understand,
& epitomise,
that self-care
is not
selfish

That it is okay to say no,
or to ask for help,
or to be truly
vulnerable

To acknowledge
that fear is
the root cause
of bitterness
& resentment

To embrace the lows,
for making the highs even
sweeter

To let the good wash
over you
the same as
the bad,
& embrace the micro changes,
as the meta
stays the same

To believe you are worthy,
of a great love,
the same as you believe
another's
worthy of
yours

To embody the idiom
that one can
only
truly love another,
after
they learn to love
themself,
& thus allowing
the hard-earned
victory
of grounded, stable
communion

To know the difference between
support
& advice,
love
& lust,
friendships
& partnerships

To have
faith
that you will find your way,
because you will;
because you live your life
with generosity
& authenticity

This is my vision for you,
that you will
make this your reality.
Rosie Owen Apr 2015
Marriage is changing, from who can get married (37 states now allow gay marriage!) to who actually ends up doing it. Only 26% of millennials are married, a sharp decrease from 36% of Generation X and 48% of baby boomers, according to the Pew Research Center. But marriage isn't obsolete — in fact, in many ways it's thriving as we re-evaluate what the institution really means to us.

And with re-evaluating marriage comes re-evaluating weddings. The Knot's "2014 Real Weddings Study" found that couples are foregoing traditional wedding customs to modernize their nuptials through their choice of rings, dresses and officiants.

That includes — perhaps most importantly — the vows. Couples today are taking cues from badass brides like Amelia Earhart, who banned the word "obey" from her 1931 wedding vows, and reciting promises to one another that reflect the partnerships they strive for. Here are 12 real-life couples who vowed...

1. "To split the difference on the thermostat."

Why it's awesome: When Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston got married, Pitt pledged to "split the difference on the thermostat." While that partnership didn't last, as we all know, it was a lighthearted vow that highlights a crucial element of modern marriage: compromise. The key to a happy marriage is learning how to meet halfway.

2. "To be a true and loyal friend to you."

Why it's awesome: Marriages weren't always about intimate, caring partnerships between equals. But we know well enough now that the happiest, most long-lasting marriages are those in which partners see each other as friends (even studies have proven it true). Jevan's vows to Alithea, shared by the Knot, are a reminder that the bedrock of friendship is what makes a modern marriage stand.

3. "To communicate fully and fearlessly."

Why it's awesome: Among the traditional promise of partnership and faith, real-life couple Anne and Gabrielle told the Knot they vowed "to communicate fully and fearlessly" as spouses. In our modern world, we have seemingly endless ways to communicate — text, email, Skype, Snapchat — and yet still have to work to connect. Sitting down face-to-face, making eye contact and being vulnerable with one another is still crucial, as is being honest without fear of judgment from your partner. Emojis aside, that's what really sustains a lasting relationship.

4. "To grab your **** even when we're old and wrinkly."

Why it's awesome: As we become more open about sexuality (thank goodness), it's only natural that a wink and a nudge find their way into the wedding vows. In an open thread on A Practical Wedding, Zach and Kate shared their vows, which included the promise "to hit on you in awesome accents and grab your **** even when we're old and wrinkly." This promise to keep the spark alive even years down the line is no small thing. After all, studies have shown that all it can take is a simple touch to maintain a ****** connection.

5. "To value our differences as much as our common ground."

Why it's awesome: Love is a powerful force to bring people together, even when they're divided by cultural background, religion and, increasingly, politics. As society grows more divisive and we hold tight to our views, it's valuable to remember that our differences don't have to actually divide us, as these vows from real-life couple Greta Christina and Ingrid, told to Patheos, show.

6. "To continue to love your children, as if they were my own."

Why it's awesome: A marriage isn't just a vow to one person, it's a vow to an entire family — future and present. In 2011, Pew Research found that more than 4 in 10 American adults have at least one "step relative" in their family, including a stepparent, a stepchild or a step or half sibling. These adults are just as likely as others to say that family is the most important element of their lives. So it's no surprise that people have been adapting their weddings to encompass the commitment to an entire family, as Sara M. did in her vows, shared on Offbeat Bride.

7. "To comfort you when the Falcons lose and drink beer with you when they win."

Why it's awesome: As Mallory summed up so perfectly to Eddie in their vows, shared by the Knot, appreciating each other's distinct interests and actively sharing in them together makes a huge difference. It goes beyond just putting on the Falcons jersey: Sitting down for the game and sharing a beer is what researchers would call "shared leisure," and it makes a big difference for marital satisfaction. That football game is more than just a football game.

8. "To never try to hurt you just because I'm angry or tired."

Why it's awesome: The chaos of our lives means lots of stress, lots of late nights and lots of exhaustion. (Unsurprisingly, Gallup found that 40% of American adults get less than the recommended amount of sleep.) That can actually wreak havoc on a relationship, which is why it's all the more important to anticipate the challenge. Sarah's vows to her husband, which she shared on A Practical Wedding, are a promise not to take out her stress and exhaustion on him. Instead, she vows to trust him throughout the chaos, "even when we veer from GPS directions, schedules, itineraries and to-do lists."

9. "I have called you my life partner, my significant other, my longtime companion, my lover. ... Now I vow to love you always as my lawfully wedded husband."

Why it's awesome: The vows said by George Takei and longtime partner Brad Altman at their wedding, after the passage of marriage equality in California, were unsurprisingly moving, given they were 21 years in the making. As couples, straight and gay, wait longer to get married (and cohabit in the meantime), labels like "husband" or "wife" are less crucial for defining the relationship than the moments a couple has shared. Takei and Altman's wedding was not proof of their commitment, but rather a tribute to the commitment they had already demonstrated — a truth echoed clearly in their vows.

10. "To be your partner in all things, not possessing you, but working with you as a part of the whole."

Why it's awesome: If we're really striving for egalitarian marriages, then recognizing the equal amounts of work required by each half, as partners, is crucial, especially as women's participation in the workforce keeps growing (57.2% compared to 69.7% for men in 2013). In order for both careers to receive equal focus, a promise not to "possess" but to work to support each other is key. Much like Amelia Earhart refused to use the word "obey," real-life couple Alex and Michelle promised to be each other's "equal in all things" in the vows they shared with the Knot.

11. "I will love you no matter what makes my blood circulate, or even no matter what provides my body with oxygen."

Why it's awesome: Traditional weddings tend to be religious occasions, but with increasing rates of atheism and marriages across faiths, religion is taking a back seat to a more personalized expression of commitment. As of 2013, only one third of couples opted to get married in a church, and even more are removing religion from their vows. But that doesn't mean the vows don't appeal to a higher sense of faith — in the other person or in the world, as these scientific, "atheistic" vows, translated from Swedish and shared on Reddit, prove.

12. "I see these vows not as promises but as privileges."

Why it's awesome: Marriage might have been necessary decades ago, but these days it's more of a choice. So it's only natural that the vows we recite — traditionally a list of duties and obligations — actually reflect the happy choice that marriage now is for so many.

Yuval and Dina chose to frame their vows as honors, as they shared with the Knot: "I see these vows not as promises but as privileges: I get to laugh with you and cry with you; care for you and share with you. I get to run with you and walk with you; build with you and live with you." With between 40% to 50% of marriages in the U.S. ending in divorce, it's more important than ever that couples remind themselves that being with their partner is a privilege in itself, and one to never take for granted.

Source: http://www.graziadressau.com
judy smith Aug 2016
It’s New York Fashion Week, and there is a frenzy backstage as models are worked into their dresses and mob the assembled engineers for instructions of how to operate the technology that magically transforms a subtle gesture into a glowing garment suggestive of the bioluminescence of jellyfish. I know there’s not enough time for them to do their work. Almost instinctively, I find the designer and bargain for 20 more minutes.

While I wonder to myself how I got here, backstage at a runway show, I also know I am witnessing what may be the harbinger of how a fourth industrial revolution is set to change fashion, resulting in a new materiality of computation that will transform a certain slice of fashion designers into the “developers” of a whole new category of clothing. By driving new partnerships in tools, materials and technologies, this revolution has the potential to dramatically reshape how we produce fashion at a scale not seen since the invention of the jacquard loom.

The jacquard loom, as it happens, inspired the earliest computers. Ever since, textile development and technology have been on an interwoven path — sometimes more loosely knit, but becoming increasingly tighter in the last five years. Around that time, my colleagues and I embarked on a project in our labs to look at “fashion tech,” which at the time was a fringe term. These were pioneers daring to — sometimes literally — weave together technology and clothing to drive new ways of thinking about the “shape” of computation. But as we looked around the fashion industry, it became clear that designers lacked the tools to harness the potential of new technologies.

For a start, all facets of technology needed to be more malleable. Batteries, processors and sensors, in particular, had to evolve from being bulky and rigid to being softer, flexible and stretchable. Thus, I began to champion “Puck [rigid], Patch [flexible], Apparel [integrated],” an internal mantra to describe what I felt would be the material transformations of sensing and computation.

As our technologies have steadily become smaller, faster and more energy efficient — a progression known in the tech industry as Moore’s Law — we’ve gone on to launch a computer the size of a postage stamp and worked with a fashion tech designer to demonstrate its capabilities. In this case we were able to show dresses that were generated not just from sketches and traditional materials, but forward-looking tools (body scans and Computer Assisted Design renderings) and materials (in this case, 3-D printed nylon). At the same time, we integrated a variety of sensors (proximity, brain-wave activity, heart-rate, etc.) that allowed the garments themselves to sense and communicate in ways that showed how fashion — inspired in part by biology — might become the interface between people and the world around them.

Eventually, a meeting between Intel and the CFDA lent support to the idea that if technology could fit more seamlessly into designs, then it would be more valuable to fashion designers. The realisation helped birth the Intel Curie module, which has since made its way down the catwalk, embedded into a slew of designs that could help wearers adapt, interpret and respond to the world around them, for example, by “sensing” adrenaline or allowing subtle gestures to illuminate a garment.

As the relationship between fashion and technology continues to evolve, we will need to reimagine research and development, supply chains, business models and more. But perhaps more than anything, as fashion and technology merge, we must embrace a new strand of collaborative transdisciplinary design expertise and integrate software, sensors, processors and synthetic and biological materials into a designer’s tool kit.

Technology will inform the warp and weft of the fabric of fashion’s future. This will trigger discussions not just about fashion as an increasingly literal interface between people, our biology and the world around us, but also about the implications that data will generate for access, health, privacy and self-expression as we look ahead. We are indeed on the precipice of a fourth industrial revolution.Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/black-formal-dresses
erin walts Apr 2016
If Earth could speak
Would it believe
The relationship with the human race is
Parasitism

If Earth could speak
Would it say
It is suffering
Dying

If Earth could speak
Would it ask
For help

Are humans a burden to the Earth
Or is the Earth a burden to humans

Destruction is needed for creation
Or is there something much bigger at play?

Bigger than sea, space, and partnerships

The earth speaks
The universe speaks


Human consciousness


Be kind to Earth
But never undermine existence
julian Nov 2010
twisted bicycles and empty pop cans line the longest street in the world-
making my way ever closer to the frozen city I catch a glimpse of the relics of yesterday-
paper bags and frost covered couches-
chilled passengers seeking the brief warmth of the morning commute-
sunlight and frost dance together and create crisp partnerships forever more-
the bus driver has no trust in cats-
the great dane out with it's friend sparks memories of my past-
bitten in the face yet still loving dogs with such grace-
the frozen city awakes as the relics of last night claim their place-
Daniel James Feb 2011
(Earnestly)* This is the first time I address the House
From these back benches in twenty-odd years.
I must confess that I had forgotten
How much better the view is from up here.

It was frequently my necessity
As Leader of the House to talk my way
Out of accusations that a statement
Had been pre-empted by an interview.
On this occasion I can gladly say
That no such interview has taken place.

First I have chosen to address the House
On why I can't vote for a war without
Support at home or agreement abroad.
The present Prime Minister is the most
Successful Labour Party Leader of our times.
I hope that he will continue to be
Our Party Leader, and I hope that he
Will long continue as successfully.
I have no sympathy nor comfort for
Those who use this crisis to remove him.
I applaud the efforts that he, heroically, has made
Until today to secure a second resolution,
And nobody could outperform the Foreign Secretary
In trying to win the backing of the Security Council.
But the intensity of those attempts
Just shows us it was vital they succeed:
Now those attempts have failed we can not
Pretend they were of no import to us.
It is not France alone who wants more time.
Germany wants more time, and Russia too.
Indeed at no time have we ever had
The minimum support we would require
And it is mere delusion to imply
That this degree of fierce hostility
Can all be due to France's President.
The truth is that Britain is being asked
To go to war without any support
From any body to which we belong:
Not from NATO, not from the EU and
Now, not from the Security Council.
A year ago a coalition formed
Its cause: to wage and win a war on terror.
To end in diplomatic failure
Signifies a most obvious error.

History will be amazed surely at the
Miscalculations that led so quickly
To the fall of such a coalition.
The US can afford to go alone;
But Britain is no superpower now.

Our interests are not best protected by
Unilateral action, but by the wide
Agreement of a World governed by rules.

Tonight the partnerships we value most,
The EU and the Security Council,
Are those that sadly are the most weakened.
These indeed are heavy casualties when
A single bomb has yet to be released,
But since the US have already warned
Their strategy will be to "Shock and Awe"
It seems, of casualties, there will be more.

It's been a favourite theme of our critics
To say this House no longer occupies
A central role in British politics.
Nothing could better show that they are wrong
Than for this House to stop this Government
Committing troops to a war that's without
Support at home or agreement abroad.

I intend to join with those tomorrow
Who vote against this war now at this time.
It is for that reason, and that alone,
And with a heavy heart... that I resign.
From Robin Cook's Resignation Speech to Parliament in the UK on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. Tuesday 18 March 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2859431.stm
Pete Youell  Dec 2014
Our Love
Pete Youell Dec 2014
Our Love together's awesome in its power,
All obstacles must bend before it's might.
Our peaceful joy fills our hearts hour by hour,
And solves all our misgivings ere they strike.

My Love for you's reflected back to me,
Your mirror shines heart's brightness to my eyes.
We gaze and feed each other's deepest need,
Falling in Love more deeply every time.

So let the world assault us with its worst,
Our partnerships impervious to strife.
Together we surrender all that hurts,
And in return we radiate Love's light.

So come with me my darling butterfly,
Let both of us serenely flutter by.
Francie Lynch Mar 2015
Everyone,
To begin.
We have no choices,
Depending on gurgled voices
Recognized in utero.
Trust radar's not activated,
Despite the life experiences
Of our carriers.

White collars
Dig for gold
Wearing masks and gloves;
So we rely on eyes
Despite the hunger
Behind the disguise.

We are tied to swivel chairs
In block buildings
And asked to trust
As they notice the dirt
Beneath our nails
Ripe-red for pulling.
They want the correct answer,
Not the right one.

Love partnerships
Are unstable vessels
At  best.
We secure trust
In disposable
Jilted pirate chests
Waiting for discovery
In teary depths.

We find refuge
In our children,
Though we notice
Eyes roll and shift
As we age and drift.

In whom do we trust?
In the unborn
Who will
Live by our words,
And define the world
We leave in trust.
Glottonous May 2015
Before there were such things as west or east,
Four Pangeaic coasts shared secrets for life.
Four chambers of a heart that pumped as one,
Connected by the tissue of an earth.
We rooted our economies in soil,
And in the warmth of sun we learned to climb.
But in winter, we drifted to the North.
We dug in deep while praying for clear sky.
And as icy Atlantis spread us wide,
Our souls sank to the cradle of red seas,
Terrifying as a medieval womb.
Volcanic tempests flared as wild as would
A child dropping stacks of plates to the floor.
A continent, torn twain by rising tide,
Divided into cents and centuries.
An unspeakable chasm, put to verb
In parts, where our voice was lost to scripture.
Instinct overwritten by memory;
Natural laws supplanted with rulebooks.
Hard-wired archetypes melted into hard
Categories and civilizations.

A terrible beauty born on horseback
Charges his chariots through deserts still,
Blinded by the glaring golden vision
Of history his-self in one image.
Temples to monumental satellites
Bleed up through our grounds, towers, and heavens.
Transhuman? Quantified Self? What's the word;
H.evolutis digs only data,
From matrices' fall to the power of ten
To trans-Pacific partnerships foretold.
The axes that spin this marble will fold.
The Old Western coast will crumble again
into red molten islands at sunset.
We'll evolve into our animal Selves,
Or be mined and displayed in museums
On red planets in the new native world.
And these words will forge, or melt into code.
Circled, triangled, squaring round again,
From decimal to digital and back,
Medial terrain falling to a side.
We can feel the core of our nerve-centre
Rotating slowly toward Oceana,
After many weighted lifetimes marooned.



Whenever and whomever left Here, Then
Will be fragile but courageously sharp.
Diamond-fueled quantum mechanified souls
Will see the golden hills they remembered.
Their mother will call them all back by force
To the source, for a global renaissance.
A stellar aeon will have passed since Death
Forced self-sacrifice on a pantheon,
And the old arms that ordered departings
Will reach for but not reach one another
From within universes to without.
The stars in an East rising in accord
Will be of all color and energy,
Generating a fused atom of light
From shared memories of metal and lith.
Warming each egg in each nest in each cave,
The heat will incubate a new blue bird
Who'll wake, and fly back home to feed her sun.
A whole poem.
Ben  Jan 2012
imagine love
Ben Jan 2012
lost in a liquor haze
lies like a one night stand
mutual attraction of mundane ideals
forbidden words whispered in defiance
of social, cultural, family expectations
beneficial partnerships lacking soul
money, money, money, money
sensual *** without a second thought
bodies viewed as replaceable objects
experiments of genders one or two
big and small, thin and wide
lips to lips to lips
bravado or a bet, charisma
another one added to the tally

or

the feeling of falling and knowing there is a net
of giving ones whole being without a second thought
living for another, living like each ay could be its last
time spent apart seems like millennia
that fabled, sought after kiss - transcending time
the fabled sought after touch - one that reaches the core
a thousand diamonds could not rival the beauty
the brilliance, the acceptance of flaws and all
emotions not meant for this lifetime alone
but to traverse the ages, written about
talked about, wished upon, searched after
understanding these four letters for all their worth

can we?
can we imagine love?
katewinslet Dec 2015
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