JL is right to query my muddled thinking. I think what I was trying to say was: Life is an unending series of choices and one of our biggest challenge is prioritizing our responsibilities. Uncountable sacrifices (ie the surrendering of one thing in order to attain another we judge of more value) of different orders of magnitude are made by us all every minute of every day, whether it's a businessman giving up an extra cup of coffee in the morning in order to catch an earlier train, or an Inuit mother lost in a storm carving a chunk out of her thigh to use as bait to catch fish to feed her starving child, or a soldier dying for his or her country. Each has made a decision about the nature of their responsibilities and the best way to manage/prioritize them. Technically all these are sacrifices, but only some of them are *sacrifices* in the "sacred ideal" way I think Marlena meant - the sort of sacrifice that mothers and fathers and soldiers and saints make in the names of patriotism, parenting, other people and let's not forget religion. What goes on in our heads when we make sacrifices and when we make *sacrifices*? Is it a different process for each? My thought was that it is the same process throughout and that the person making the either the sacrifice or the *sacrifice* just reviews and prioritizes what she views as her responsibilities, decides it must be done and gets on with it. It is then left to others to glorify (or not) her decision. Or something like that. All best, MN ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html