When our emotional fuel is low, we can't do an Indy pit stop and refuel quickly. Our emotional reserves can be compared to a car battery. If we sit in a parking lot and run all our car's accessories - radio, headlights, and so on - we can probably sap that battery in about ten minutes. After that massive drain, suppose we then take the battery to a service station and say, I'd like this battery charged in ten minutes. What would the attendant tell us? No, we're going to put the battery on our overnight charger. It's going to take seven or eight hours to bring it all the way back up. It has to be recharged slowly or else the battery will be damaged. Likewise, to recover properly from an emotionally draining activity takes time.

Yellowstone National Park was the first 'wilderness' protected area in the world, but the model spread rapidly across the globe, even though many 'wilderness' areas were created by removing local inhabitants. In Africa, game reserves were established with the aim of refilling stocks of wildlife killed by Europeans in the 'scramble for Africa.' Safeguarding animal populations in protected area facilitated the control of access to wildlife and also served to separate wildlife and domestic stock, at least to some extent, thereby slowing the rate of spread of animal diseases. Since human influence was contradictory to the wilderness ethic, the management ideal was to isolate conservation areas, keeping disturbance to a minimum, on the grounds that if left alone, nature's balance would prevail. These ideas were supported by the belief that nature's fragile balance would be disrupted by human influence.

When you are immersed in writing an essay for classes, you can easily forget that you are trying to communicate with a specific person - your teacher, who will grade the essay. However, you should always keep this in mind: What can you write that will most impress your teacher? A teacher is probably not going to be overly impressed by flawless grammar and spelling; those qualities are expected. What will impress the teacher is the quality and strength of your ideas. Ideas are the critical component of a good essay. They must be communicated in a manner that makes them accessible to the reader. Coming up with sophisticated and intelligent ideas is your responsibility; no book can give them to you.

The Spartans, a warrior society in ancient Greece, were feared and revered for their strength, courage and endurance. The power of the Spartan army did not come from the sharpness of their spears, however; it came from the strength of their shields. Losing one's shield in battle was considered the single greatest crime a Spartan could commit. Spartans excuse without penalty the warrior who loses his helmet or breastplate in battle, writes Steven Pressfield in his account of the Battle of Thermopylae, but deprive the man who discards his shield of all his citizenship rights. And the reason was simple. A warrior carries a helmet and breastplate for his own protection, but his shield for the safety of the whole line.