Free Essays on 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People

THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was written by Stephen R. Covey in 1989. This book has been on the National Best Seller list for over 200 weeks. Many people have attended Covey’s seminars on the subject. Many companies have required top executives to read this book including AT & T, Dow Chemical, Ford, Deloitte and Touche, Marriott, Xerox and Ritz Carlton Hotels. This book proposes that there are seven habits that can be learned to improve one’s personal and interpersonal effectiveness. Covey describes a habit as â€Å"the intersection of knowledge, skill and desire.† Knowledge would represent the â€Å"what to do†, skill the â€Å"how to do†, and desire the â€Å"want to do†. In order to create a habit in our lives, we must have all three. Habits 1, 2, and 3 relate to Private Victory with habit 4, 5, and 6 relating to Public Victories and Habit 7 being involved with Renewal. Habit one is to be proactive. This habit says that as human beings we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We create our own destiny. The proactive person acts rather than waiting to be acted upon. According to Covey, part of increasing our self-awareness is understanding our Circle of Concern, that is, our range of concern with which we have mental or emotional involvement. A Circle of Influence resides inside the Circle of Concern reflecting those things over which we have control. Habit two is to begin with the end in mind. If we paint a visual image of what we want our life to be then we actually provide a frame of reference within which all our behaviors can be examined. We must understand where we are going. We should develop a personal mission statement. It will provide the basic direction of our lives. This statement will force us to give thought to our values and what we want to accomplish in life. In the... Free Essays on 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People Free Essays on 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was written by Stephen R. Covey in 1989. This book has been on the National Best Seller list for over 200 weeks. Many people have attended Covey’s seminars on the subject. Many companies have required top executives to read this book including AT & T, Dow Chemical, Ford, Deloitte and Touche, Marriott, Xerox and Ritz Carlton Hotels. This book proposes that there are seven habits that can be learned to improve one’s personal and interpersonal effectiveness. Covey describes a habit as â€Å"the intersection of knowledge, skill and desire.† Knowledge would represent the â€Å"what to do†, skill the â€Å"how to do†, and desire the â€Å"want to do†. In order to create a habit in our lives, we must have all three. Habits 1, 2, and 3 relate to Private Victory with habit 4, 5, and 6 relating to Public Victories and Habit 7 being involved with Renewal. Habit one is to be proactive. This habit says that as human beings we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We create our own destiny. The proactive person acts rather than waiting to be acted upon. According to Covey, part of increasing our self-awareness is understanding our Circle of Concern, that is, our range of concern with which we have mental or emotional involvement. A Circle of Influence resides inside the Circle of Concern reflecting those things over which we have control. Habit two is to begin with the end in mind. If we paint a visual image of what we want our life to be then we actually provide a frame of reference within which all our behaviors can be examined. We must understand where we are going. We should develop a personal mission statement. It will provide the basic direction of our lives. This statement will force us to give thought to our values and what we want to accomplish in life. In the third habit, Covey tells us to put first things first. Inde... Free Essays on 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was written by Stephen R. Covey in 1989. This book has been on the National Best Seller list for over 200 weeks. Many people have attended Covey’s seminars on the subject. Many companies have required top executives to read this book including AT & T, Dow Chemical, Ford, Deloitte and Touche, Marriott, Xerox and Ritz Carlton Hotels. This book proposes that there are seven habits that can be learned to improve one’s personal and interpersonal effectiveness. Covey describes a habit as â€Å"the intersection of knowledge, skill and desire.† Knowledge would represent the â€Å"what to do†, skill the â€Å"how to do†, and desire the â€Å"want to do†. In order to create a habit in our lives, we must have all three. Habits 1, 2, and 3 relate to Private Victory with habit 4, 5, and 6 relating to Public Victories and Habit 7 being involved with Renewal. Habit one is to be proactive. This habit says that as human beings we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We create our own destiny. The proactive person acts rather than waiting to be acted upon. According to Covey, part of increasing our self-awareness is understanding our Circle of Concern, that is, our range of concern with which we have mental or emotional involvement. A Circle of Influence resides inside the Circle of Concern reflecting those things over which we have control. Habit two is to begin with the end in mind. If we paint a visual image of what we want our life to be then we actually provide a frame of reference within which all our behaviors can be examined. We must understand where we are going. We should develop a personal mission statement. It will provide the basic direction of our lives. This statement will force us to give thought to our values and what we want to accomplish in life. In the...

Biography of Malcolm Gladwell, Writer

Biography of Malcolm Gladwell, Writer English-born Canadian journalist, author, and speaker Malcolm Timothy  Gladwell is known for his articles and books that identify, approach and explain the unexpected implications of social science research. In addition to his writing work, he is the podcast host of  Revisionist History. Early Life Malcolm Gladwell was born on September 3, 1963, in  Fareham,  Hampshire, England  to a father who was a mathematics professor, Graham Gladwell, and his mother Joyce Gladwell, a Jamaican psychotherapist. Gladwell grew up in Elmira, Ontario, Canada. He studied at the University of Toronto and received his bachelors degree in History in 1984 before moving to the U.S. to become a journalist. He initially covered business and science at the Washington Post where he worked for nine years. He began freelancing at The New Yorker before being offered a position as a staff writer there in 1996.   Malcolm Gladwell’s Literary Work In 2000, Malcolm Gladwell took a phrase that had up until that point been most frequently associated with epidemiology and single-handedly realigned it in all of our minds as a social phenomenon. The phrase was tipping point, and Gladwells breakthrough pop-sociology book of the same name was about why and how some ideas spread like social epidemics. became a social epidemic itself and continues to be a bestseller. Gladwell followed with Blink (2005), another book in which he examined a social phenomenon by dissecting numerous examples to arrive at his conclusions. Like The Tipping Point, Blink claimed a  basis in research, but it was still written in a breezy and accessible voice that give Gladwells writing popular appeal. Blink is about the notion of rapid cognition - snap judgments and how and why people make them. The idea for the book came to Gladwell after he noticed that he was experiencing social repercussions as a result of growing out his afro (prior to that point, he had kept his hair close-cropped). Both The Tipping Point and Blink were phenomenal bestsellers and his third book, Outliers (2008), took the same bestselling track. In Outliers, Gladwell once again synthesizes the experiences of numerous individuals in order to move beyond those experiences to arrive at a social phenomenon that others hadnt noticed, or at least hadnt popularized in the way that Gladwell has proved adept at doing. In compelling narrative form, Outliers examines the role that environment and cultural background play in the unfolding of great success stories. Gladwells fourth book,  What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures (2009) gathers Gladwells favorite articles from  The New Yorker  from his time as a staff writer with the publication. The stories play with the common theme of perception as Gladwell tries to show the reader the world through the eyes of others - even if the point of view happens to be that of a dog. His most recent publication,  David and Goliath (2013), was inspired in part by an article that Gladwell penned for  The New Yorker  in 2009 called How David Beats Goliath. This fifth book from Gladwell focuses on the contrast of advantage and probability of success amongst the underdogs from varying situations, the most well-known story concerning the biblical David and Goliath. Although the book didnt receive intense critical acclaim, it was a bestseller and hit No. 4 on  The New York Times  hardcover non-fiction chart, and No. 5 on USA Todays best-selling books.

Managing People and Organisations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Managing People and Organisations - Essay Example A corporate ethics program comprises a code of ethics, education and training of employees for ethics, a reporting and audit system, and an investigation system. In different corporations, the managers emphasize upon different components to different extent. In a vast majority of cases, the corporate ethics programs are designed and control by the senior management in a corporation. According to alpha.fdu.edu (n.d.), 84 per cent of the general counsel, 77 per cent CEOs, and 75 per cent senior human resources executives write the codes of ethics, whereas 58 per cent of the chairmen write the codes of ethics. This speaks of the magnitude of control exercised by the executives on the codes of ethics whereas employees are just required to comply with them as part of their job. A demand of blind faith upon the corporation on the part of the employees clearly reflects from these statistics. Although the conflicts between these roles are not experienced on the daily basis, yet the employees hope to find some clash or even the simplest decisions become too difficult to take in this world where the goals and interests of the corporations and the stakeholders are so diverse and variant, that conflicts are simply inevitable. In spite of the governmental regulations and legal frameworks within which the corporations have to remain and do the business, we cannot rely on corporations to be ethical and responsible. Ethical decision making processes have reportedly been found to be important always throughout the past many years. â€Å"The language of ethics and responsibility seems to be here to stay, and is claiming a degree of centrality as the necessary conscience of managerial capitalism† (Parker, 2002, p. 92). One of the fundamental reasons why we cannot expect corporations to be ethical and responsible is that there is no definitive answer to every ethical question. In order to find the right answer to every ethical question, we need to have the right tools. The bad aspect about this bleak situation is that workforce is left to deal with the consequences when ethical requirements are not fulfilled. Employers also get affected in myriad ways like not being able to achieve maximum cooperation of the employees raises much concern for many corporations when it comes to maintaining the productivity level. Employees find themselves unable to cooperate with employers on more levels when many ethical requirements get crushed under the employers’ feet. Now the conditions are much better but such a situation of less cooperation due to lack of ethical consideration particularly developed abruptly when economic recession spread globally. Organizations began to fire even the responsible staff members due to not being able to ensure reasonable salaries to every employee. Lay offs became very common and ethical rights of employees began getting severely violated too. This shows that corporations cannot be always trusted to carry out all their funct ions ethically and responsibly since nothing can be perfect and certain sacrifices have to be made by the employees within a workplace in favor of demanding employers who rush after meeting certain goals in this age of excessive competitiveness. Nevertheless, lack

Assignment 5 Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 9

5 - Assignment Example The graph shows that the percentages of the native speaker interlocutor were higher in all the categories above. The findings are that a native speaker interlocutor achieves greater accuracy and systematicity with the learner since the interviewers native language shares the same bound morphemes as those of the learner. The native speaker achieves higher percentage in plural and person singular over the non-native speaker. The percentages mean that a learner will learn to pronounce plural and singular words better when a native interlocutor teaches them to pronounce the words. The second graph depicts the effects of NNS and NS interlocutors on target language utterances of free morphemes on a learner in copula, the indefinite article and definite article categories. The NNS interlocutor achieves higher percentages in all categories as compared to NS speaker. An NNS interlocutor will enable a learner to link sentences accurately better using joining verbs or copula. The difference in learning the curve of indefinite articles between the NNS and NS is very minimal. An NNS interlocutor will enable a learner to use the definite article, the in a better way than an NS interlocutor. In conclusion, an NNS will effectively teach a learner to adopt a better sentence structure while an NS interlocutor will teach a learner to pronounce the sentences and achieve

History of Europe 1815-1914 Essay Example for Free

History of Europe 1815-1914 Essay Nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon, considering the grand sweep of history. Although its roots can be found among the ancient Hebrews and Greeks, Niccolo Machiavelli’s book, The Prince, was the beginning of modern day nationalism, and was â€Å"important in the preparation of nationalism. † (Kohn, 1955, p. 9) Machiavelli believed that the state must be preserved and defended at any cost, and longed for Italian unification, which was to come centuries later. John Milton of 17th century Great Britain is considered to be the architect of modern day nationalism. Milton regarded nationalism as â€Å"the affirmation of individual freedom from authority, the self-assertion of personality in face of its own government or church,† and the freedom to â€Å"utter and to argue freely according to conscience. † (Kohn, 1955, p. 16-17) According to historian John Hall, at the core of liberalism is the quest to answer the question, â€Å"What is the nature of a good life? † (Hall, 1988, p. 9) Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher, was concerned with the categories of the human mind. His philosophy is often called critical philosophy. He believed human reasoning to be the ultimate authority on morality, and that a person should be free to reason. As hall puts it, Kant’s â€Å"defense of the basic liberal aim of considering individuals to be of moral worth remains high-powered and absolutely central to liberalism. † (Hall, 1988, p. 19) John Stuart Mill is considered to be â€Å"the most important single theorist of liberalism. † (Hall, 1988, p. 24) He believed in a person’s right to freedom, as did Kant, and defended individual liberty. Mill wrote in his work, On Liberty, â€Å"the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. † (Hall, 1988, p. 25) Mill was considered to be a radical in his time for he supported women’s equality, including the right to vote, education and birth control. Although Mill never became a socialist, he studied pre-Marxist socialist works. Karl Marx’s brand of socialism divided industrialized society into two classes: proletariat and bourgeoisie. The proletariats being the working class, and the bourgeoisie being the rich, ruling class. He criticized capitalism and considered it to be oppressive. He viewed freedom as the â€Å"extent of humankinds domination over nature and the degree of rational, conscious control over social relations. † (Walicki, 1995, p. 12) Marx was the â€Å"prophet of communism† and he thought that his utopian view of society would â€Å"restore the unity of humankind, reconciling human individual existence with human species essence. † (Walicki, 1995, p. 12) Friedrich Engels was a contemporary of Marx, and co-wrote works with him, including the Communist Manifesto. Both Engels and Marx co-founded communism. He believed that the evils in industrialized society were due to private property, and only through a class struggle which led to a communist society could there be equality. The Problem of Bismarck Otto von Bismarck was appointed as Prime Minister of Prussia by Emperor William I in 1862. Not incredibly popular when appointed, people underestimated the power-hungry man. Prior to Bismarck’s appointment, William wanted to reform the Prussian military. The parliament agreed to reform but did not want to yield control of the budget to William for a long period of time. When Bismarck came on the scene he managed to collect additional taxes needed, and used them toward military reform without the consent or approval of the parliament. Unlike Bismarck, Louis-Napoleon of France, the great nephew of Napoleon I, started his political career with great support, but ended up being deposed. He was elected president of France in 1848 with a victory of 74. 2%. He was able to gain such a huge victory by being able to â€Å"appear as all things to all men. † (Price, 2003) However, resistance grew to his domination of government in 1851. He started a coup in December 1851 with little resistance in Paris, but more in rural areas, but he was able to crush that resistance. An election was held after the coup to decide whether or not people wanted him to have the authority necessary to create a constitution, and the result was an overwhelming yes, due to his â€Å"immense popularity. † (Price, 2003) Napoleon created the Second Empire, with himself the Emperor. In 1868 Bismarck pushed for Leopold, prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, to take the throne of Spain after the Spanish Revolution of 1868. Napoleon was alarmed at the prospect of Leopold taking the Spanish throne and threatened war. Leopold’s candidacy for the throne was withdrawn, but Napoleon wanted a letter of apology from Bismarck. Bismarck published the demands of Napoleon and Prussia’s rejection in the Ems Dispatch because he knew it would likely lead to war, and thought that a war with France would cause southern German states to help fight a Prussian war, leading to the unification of Germany. War did break out in 1870, and lasted until 1871. France was defeated by Prussia under Bismarck’s leadership. Politics Economy During the 19th century Great Britain experienced a tremendous amount of economic growth, which began with the cotton industry. â€Å"Between 1815 and 1851 occurred the most rapid economic development of domestic resources in the whole of British economic history. † (Smellie, 1962, p. 140) By 1860 half of the world’s coal and manufactured goods were supplied by Britain. By 1870 British international trade was greater than the French, German and Italian combined. Several major political developments occurred in Britain during the 1830s. The Reform Bill, enacted in 1832, lessened the amount of land a man had to own to be eligible to vote. It increased eligible voters by more than 200,000. However, eligible voters still only amounted to 20%. As a reaction to the French Revolution, the Six Acts Law was passed by Parliament in 1819. It severely limited civil liberties, including freedom of the press and the right to public meeting. Other laws were passed which outlawed political rallies, and made it illegal to form labor organizations. The economic development of France was much slower than Britain’s. It took longer to industrialize because the French population did not increase as fast as the rest of Europe. The slow population growth was caused by peasants limiting their family size due to the small plots they farmed. A recession in the 1860s occurred because agriculture and industry could not keep up with global competition. From 1815 to 1870 France went through a series of regime changes. In 1815 Napoleon I was defeated and France was invaded by foreign troops. Restoration of the Bourbon monarchy was forced upon the French people, and Louis XVIII was installed as king. After Louis died in 1824 Charles X became king. Moderate royalists and liberals won seats in elections, and in 1829 Charles appointed Jules de Polignac as chief minister, which alienated both moderates and liberals. After the elections in 1830 Charles signed the July Ordinances into law which dismissed the newly elected Chamber of Deputies, causing another revolution where Charles was driven from the throne, and the July Monarchy installed, named after the month when Louis Philippe, of the house of Orleans, was installed. Louis-Philippe was also driven from the throne in 1848, and the Second Republic was created. An April 1848 election allowed all eligible males to vote. Workers in Paris, however, did not like the results of the election and revolted. The revolts were brutally put down in what came to be called the June Days of 1848. Louis Napoleon won the presidential elections of 1848, as previously mentioned, later declaring himself emperor. War Unity During the 19th century unification occurred in both Germany and Italy. In Germany Bismarck managed to unite Germany through war with France in 1870, asking Germans not to fight â€Å"for Prussian expansion but for the sake of the fatherland. † (Bridge, 1980, p. 3) He succeeded in uniting Germany, but at a price Germans did not realize. â€Å"Bismarcks sensational success in unifying the country blinded most of his countrymen to the political retardation he had imposed upon them. †(Feuchtwanger, 2001, p. 14) He managed to force an authoritarian system on all of Germany. In Italy the Risorgimento, the term for Italian resistance to Austrian rule and the growing desire for unification, began with Giuseppe Mazzini. Exiled to France in 1831, he created the organization called Giovane Italia (Young Italy) in order to help spread Italian nationalism. Giuseppe Garibaldi was inspired by Mazzini, and in 1860 he landed in Sicily in order to stir up a revolt against the Sicilian king. He managed to gather Sicilian peasants to fight, and they were able to defeat the king. He then set himself up as the dictator of Sicily, and headed to the southern mainland with his Sicilian peasants. He also gained the support of peasants there, and then headed north, where he defeated King Francis of Naples. He was met with resistance by the forces of Victor Emmanuel, king of Sardinia. He decided to hand over his conquests to Victor Emmanuel. Garibaldi was an exact opposite of Bismarck. He fought for unification of his country by gathering the support of the people, while Bismarck united his country by embroiling them in wars. Bismarck imposed authoritarianism on the German people. Garibaldi put his political ambitions aside for the good of his country. â€Å"He could have established himself as dictator of southern Italy but believed national unity to be more important than personal ambition. † (Farmer, 2006)

Aristotle, Connectionism, and the Brain :: Philosophy Psychology Papers

Aristotle, Connectionism, and the Brain Can a mass of networked neurons produce moral human agents? I shall argue that it can; a brain can be morally excellent. A connectionist account of how the brain works can explain how a person might be morally excellent in Aristotle's sense of the term. According to connectionism, the brain is a maze of interconnections trained to recognize and respond to patterns of stimulation. According to Aristotle, a morally excellent human is a practically wise person trained in good habits. What an Aristotelian theory of ethics and a connectionist theory of mind have in common is the assumption that the successful mind/brain has the disposition to behave appropriately in appropriate circumstances. According to Aristotle, the good person knows the right end, desires and chooses to pursue it, and recognizes the right means to it. Thus the good person's brain must be able to form certain moral concepts, develop appropriate behavioral dispositions, and learn practical reasoning skills. I shall arg ue that this collection of the brain's cognitive capacities is best accounted for by a connectionist theory of the mind/brain. The human condition is both material and moral; we are brain-controlled bodies with ethical values. My essay seeks to understand the relationship between our brains and our values, between how the brain works and how we make moral decisions. How can the brain be a mind, a conscious person? Recently, some philosophers have argued that human consciousness and cognitive activity, including even our moral cognition and behavior, can best be explained using a connectionist or neural network model of the brain (see Churchland 1995; Dennett 1991 and 1996). (1) Is this right? Can a mass of networked neurons produce moral human agents? I shall argue that it can; a brain can be morally excellent. A connectionist account of how the brain works can explain how a person might be morally excellent in Aristotle's sense of that term. 1. Connectionism The brain receives input and somehow transforms it into output. How does it do it? In part because of the extraordinary technological feats achieved using digital processing computers, the brain has often been interpreted as a symbol manipulator and its cognitive activities as the transformation of symbols according to rules. By contrast, recent successes with parallel distributed processing computers have encouraged a connectionist theory of mind which regards the brain as a pattern recognizer and its cognitive activities as the transformation of neuronal activation patterns; however, these pattern transformations are not rule-governed processes, but straightforwardly causal processes in which networked units (neurons) excite and inhibit each other's activation level.

Succubus on Top CHAPTER 18

â€Å"That's not funny,† I said. â€Å"Seems like a reasonable question.† I looked at him and then wrapped my arms around myself. â€Å"Is that all you're going to say?† â€Å"I†¦I don't really know what else to say.† â€Å"This is the part where you yell at me.† His eyebrows rose. â€Å"Oh, I see. I didn't know this was already scripted out. â€Å" â€Å"That's not what†¦look. I slept with someone else. And not just slept. I didn't have to do it†¦not the way I have to with humans. You get that, right?† â€Å"Yes,† he said, still dead calm. â€Å"And I wasn't drunk or anything. Tipsy maybe, but still in control of my senses.† â€Å"Yes.† â€Å"So aren't you mad?† â€Å"Stunned is the dominant emotion at the moment. Finding out someone impersonated you is almost more troubling than the sex part.† â€Å"He didn't impersonate you, perse†¦I mean, I knew it was him.† â€Å"I know. But it's still weird.† When he fell silent again, I could only stare with incredulity. He caught my look and retuned it. â€Å"What do you want?† This time he did sound annoyed, almost angry. â€Å"Do you want me to be mad? Will that like†¦punish you or something? Is that what you want?† I said nothing and realized that was exactly what I wanted. I had read a book once where a guy accidentally killed a girl while driving drunk. His powerful family had managed to keep him out of jail, and he'd hated it. He'd wanted the cleansing catharsis of real punishment, of paying for his crimes. Right now, I needed the same thing. â€Å"I deserve it,† I told Seth. His voice was cold. â€Å"Well, I'm not going to give it to you right now. You can't dictate what I feel. Sorry.† My mouth started to drop open, unsure what to do with this turn of events. The ringing of my cell phone interrupted my rumination. I glanced at my purse, then let the phone go to voice mail. A moment later, it rang again. â€Å"You should answer it,† Seth told me. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I wanted to crawl into a hole. But I got the phone and read the display. No one I recognized. Sometimes that was Jerome. If I didn't answer, the demon was likely to teleport on over, and that was quite possibly the only thing that could make this scenario worse. â€Å"I'm sorry,† I said softly to Seth, just before I answered. I didn't know if I was apologizing for the interruption or what I'd done with Bastien. â€Å"Hello?† â€Å"Hey, Georgina. This is Wyatt.† It took me a moment. From Doug's band. â€Å"Hey, how's it going?† â€Å"Bad. I didn't know who else to call. I'm at the hospital with Doug. â€Å" My heart stopped. â€Å"Oh my God. What happened?† â€Å"He, uh, took some pills.† â€Å"What kind of pills?† â€Å"Not sure. But he took a whole bottle of them.† Wyatt's news spurred Seth and me to action. It was funny how tragedy could override anger. Whatever unresolved issues ensnared us, we put them on hold as I drove us downtown. Wyatt had briefly told the rest of the story as I'd left my apartment at a run. Alec hadn't come through with his latest shipment. Doug had crashed again, plunging into that frightening darkness I'd observed before. Wyatt didn't entirely know what had triggered the overdose. He blamed everything from a suicidal urge to a desperate attempt at recapturing the high through other means. The emergency room had pumped his stomach, and the doctor said he was okay for now, but he hadn't yet regained consciousness. Wyatt had called me because Doug had no family here, and no one knew how to contact the ones who lived out of town. Corey and Min were there when we arrived. They elaborated a bit more for us and said there was no change in Doug's condition. Seth stayed silent, but I could tell he was as concerned as I was. I asked if I could see Doug, and a nurse told me I could. I entered the room alone and found him asleep, hooked up to tubes and a bleeping machine. I had watched medical technology change over the years, from leeches to defibrillators, but that didn't mean I felt comfortable with any of it. Machines that kept people alive rubbed me the wrong way. They weren't natural, even if they did good. â€Å"Oh, Doug,† I murmured, sitting at his bedside. His skin was pale, his hand cold and clammy. The bleeping machine registered a steady heartbeat, so that was something. None of the other readouts meant anything to me. I watched him, feeling helpless. Mortals, I thought, were fragile things, and there was nothing I could do about that. Many, many years ago, Bastien and I had worked at a dance hall in Paris. Dancers in those days were almost always prostitutes too, but I hadn't minded. The opportunity had provided me with both succubus energy and monetary income. Bastien had been a bouncer and ostensibly my lover. This allowed him to sing my praises, bolstering my reputation and sending me a large clientele. â€Å"There's a young man who shows up every night,† the incubus told me one day. â€Å"He has ‘virgin' stamped all over him, but he's rich too. I've talked to him a few times. He doesn't like the idea of paying for sex, but he's completely obsessed with you.† The news pleased me, and when Bastien pointed out the gentleman, I made a lot of eye contact with him throughout the performance. Sure enough, a manservant of his discretely solicited me on behalf of his employer afterward, and I hurried to prepare myself backstage. â€Å"Josephine,† called a voice beside me. I turned and saw another dancer, an especial friend of mine named Dominique. â€Å"Hey,† I told her, grinning. â€Å"I have a nice prospect I've got to get to.† Her grim face made me pause. â€Å"What's wrong?† Dominique was small and blond, with an almost waifish appearance that made her look like she wasn't getting enough to eat. That wasn't a surprise, however. None of us in that profession ever got enough to eat. â€Å"Josephine†¦Ã¢â‚¬  she murmured, blue eyes wide. â€Å"I need your help. I think†¦I think I'm pregnant.† I stopped in my tracks. â€Å"Are you sure?† â€Å"Pretty sure. I†¦I don't know what to do. I need this job. You know I do.† I nodded. From the wings, Jean – the man who took cuts from our liaisons – yelled at me to hurry up and meet my young man. I gave Dominique a quick hug. â€Å"I have to go do this. I'll find you later, okay? We'll figure something out.† But I never really got a later. The young man, Etienne, proved to be adorable. He was much younger than my apparent age, and engaged to be married. He was torn on the issue of sex. Part of him felt he needed to be pure for his bride; the other part wanted to be experienced on his wedding night. That was the part that won out, the part that brought him to my bed and gave me the succubus bonus of both a moral corruption and an energy yield. He resented me for both my lifestyle and my hold over him, but that didn't stop him from coming back every day for the next few weeks. â€Å"I hate you for this,† he told me one day after we'd been together. He lay back against the sheets, in a sweaty, postcoital repose. I stood near the bed, putting my clothes on while he watched. â€Å"Marry me.† I laughed out loud, tossing my hair – then honey blond and curly – over one shoulder. He flushed angrily. He had dark eyes and hair and a perennially brooding look. â€Å"Is that funny?† â€Å"Only because you hate me in one breath and love me in the other.† I smiled as I laced up my undergarments. â€Å"I suppose there are a lot of marriages like that.† â€Å"Not everything's a joke,† he said. â€Å"Maybe not,† I agreed. â€Å"But this comes pretty close.† â€Å"Are you turning me down?† I pulled my dress over my head. â€Å"Of course I am. You have no idea what you're asking. It's ridiculous.† â€Å"You treat me like I'm a child sometimes,† he declared, sitting up straighten â€Å"You're not that much older than me. You have no right to act so wise†¦especially since you're a†¦Ã¢â‚¬  I grinned at him. â€Å"A whore?† He had the grace to look embarrassed. â€Å"And that, sweeting, is the problem. Never mind your family's scandalized reaction. Even if we managed to pull it off, you'd never get over that. You'd spend the rest of our marriage – which would probably be short-lived – obsessing about all the men I'd been with. Wondering if one of them had been better. Wondering if I'd done something with them that you thought was new and novel with you.† Angry, he stood up and pulled on his pants. â€Å"I would have thought you'd be grateful.† â€Å"Flattered,† I said coldly, â€Å"but nothing more.† That wasn't entirely true. The truth was, despite his youthful certainty and mood swings, I liked Etienne. A lot. Something about him appealed to me. Maybe it was because all that emotionality and pride came from an artistic nature. He painted as a hobby. There it was again, my unfortunate obsession with creative men. Luckily, at that time in my life, I had enough sense to avoid deep entanglements with humans. â€Å"I wish you could choose who you love,† he said bitterly. â€Å"Because I wouldn't choose you, you know. But, here we are. I can't stop thinking about you. I feel like there's some pull to you I can't fight.† â€Å"I'm sorry,† I said gently, surprised at the small ache in my heart. â€Å"Wait until you're married. Your wife will make you forget all about me.† â€Å"No. She doesn't even compare.† â€Å"Plain?† Egotistical of me, perhaps, but I heard it a lot. â€Å"Boring,† he replied. Then I'd heard a scream, a bloodcurdling, horror-filled scream. I forgot all about Etienne and tore out of the small, dank room. Down the hall I ran until I found a congregation of people and the source of distress. It was Dominique. She sprawled over a narrow pallet, lying in blood. â€Å"My God,† I gasped, kneeling beside her. â€Å"What happened?† But I already knew. I didn't need the forthcoming explanation from the other dancers. I had neglected her pleas for help a couple weeks ago, caught up in my own whirlwind romance. So she had sought her own solution, as so many lower-class women often did. Unfortunately, there were no machines or sanitizing in those days. An abortion was a dangerous, often deadly, business. â€Å"Oh God,† I said again. I had never lost the need to appeal to my creator, despite my theoretical renouncement. I clutched her hand, not knowing what to do. A half-dressed Etienne appeared in the crowd. I looked up at him desperately. â€Å"You have to go get a doctor. Please.† Whatever injured pride he harbored over my rejection, he couldn't refuse me in that moment. I saw him make motions to leave, but Bastien grabbed his arm. â€Å"No, it doesn't matter.† To me he said: â€Å"She's gone, Fleur .† I looked at Dominique's young face. Her skin was pale, eyes blank and glazed over as they stared at nothing. I knew I should close them, but suddenly I didn't want to touch her. I dropped her hand, slowly backing up, staring in horror. It was by no means the first time I'd seen a dead body, but something struck me about it then I'd never really considered with such shocking clarity. One moment she was here, the next she wasn't. Oh, the difference one heartbeat could make. The stink of mortality hung in the air, painting the awful truth about humans. How short their lives were. And fragile. They were like paper dolls among us, turning to ash in the blink of an eye. How many had I seen come and go in over a millennium? How many had I seen pass from infancy to a gray-haired death? The stink of mortality. It threatened to overwhelm the room. How could no one else sense it? I hated it†¦and I feared it. Feeling suffocated, I backed up further. Both Bastien and Etienne reached for me in some fumbling attempt at comfort, but I wanted none of it. Dominique, barely out of childhood, had just bled her life away in front of me. What fragile things humans were. I had to get out of there before I became sick. I turned from those who would console me and ran away. â€Å"What fragile things humans are,† I murmured to Doug. The feeling that welled up within me now as I sat beside him was not sorrow or despair. It was anger. White-hot anger. Humans were fragile, but some of them were still in my care. And whether that was foolish or not on my part, I could not shirk my duty. Doug was one of my humans. And someone had nearly cut his time short. I stood up, gave his hand a last squeeze, and strode out of the room. From the shocked glances Corey, Min, and Wyatt gave me, I must have looked terrifying. I hit the pause button on my righteous fury when I noticed something. â€Å"Where's Seth?† â€Å"He said he had to go,† said Corey. â€Å"He left you this.† He handed me a scrap of paper with Seth's scrawled writing. Thetis, I'll talk to you later. I stared at it, suddenly feeling nothing. I went numb. My mind would not allow me to focus on Seth just then. I crumpled the paper up, said good-bye to the band, and left the hospital. When I reached the lobby, I took out my cell phone and dialed. â€Å"Alec? This is Georgina.† â€Å"Hey, Georgina!† I heard the anxious note in his voice. Almost desperate. â€Å"You were right,† I began, hoping I sounded anxious too. â€Å"You were right. I need more. Now. Tonight. Can you do it?† â€Å"Yes,† he said. There was palpable relief in his voice. â€Å"Absolutely I can do it.† We set up a meeting spot immediately. It couldn't be too soon for me. I'd been on an emotional roller coaster in the last twenty-four hours, and I was about to take it out on Alec. I couldn't wait. The fact that he seemed so eager for it was icing on the cake. â€Å"Oh, hey, Georgina?† he asked, just before we disconnected. â€Å"Yeah?† His voice sounded strange; I couldn't decipher the emotion. â€Å"You have no idea how glad I am you called.†