Latest news with #AdamPhillips
Powys County Times
02-08-2025
- Sport
- Powys County Times
Barnsley boss Conor Hourihane relieved to emerge from ‘mad' game with victory
Barnsley head coach Conor Hourihane was glad to come out on the right side of a 'mad' game as the Tykes got their Sky Bet League One campaign off to a winning start with a 3-1 League One win at Plymouth. Barnsley led 2-0 at half-time thanks to a Brendan Wiredu own goal and a thumping volley by Adam Phillips. Makeshift striker Caleb Watts got the Pilgrims back into the game and Barnsley were reduced to 10 men when central defender Jack Shepherd was sent off for a second caution after 63 minutes. The Tykes sealed victory when Davis Keillor-Dunn scored in the 83rd minute. Hourihane said: 'It was a frantic, bit of everything opening game so I am just delighted to come away with something in the end. I think it was just a bit of a mad game, to be honest. 'So much happened you know, cards, that disallowed goal at the start. 'There were some good goals from our point of view as well. We played some good stuff, particularly when went down to 10 men. I am just glad to come out the other side of it really. 'There were some decisions in the game where some went for you, some went against you and like I said, a bit of a frantic game. 'It's a long, long season so there's nothing to get too excited about. 'We would have lost that last year, no question. We had a couple of situations last year where we may have been ahead and folded a little bit, but there's seems like a bit of an edge to this group and the culture togetherness that we've tried to bond over the course of preseason. 'That was there to see in abundance in the game. 'I know this team will score goals. You know, Dave McGoldrick, Adam Phillips, Keillor-Dunn and Caylan Vickers. We've got goals in us. There's no question about it. 'Technically Adam's an outstanding footballer, you know, it was a great goal technically and I am delighted for him.' New Plymouth head coach Tom Cleverley has urged his side to tighten up defensively. Cleverley said: 'You can't question the players' application, their work ethic, their character to stick with it at 2-0 down, and I felt like there was only one team that was going to press on. 'We maybe didn't manage that part of the game well enough as when we were 2-1 and looking like scoring the next goal, an unforced every or two let them off the hook, maybe not being tight enough at the back, gave them a chance. 'The overriding feeling is there was a lack of conviction in what we did without the ball today. 'Today highlighted if we are half-hearted in what we do we will be punished. 'We know we are lacking a centre forward so I thought Caleb Watts was our shining star today. He did an excellent job and got his goal in that role. 'Even though we don't have a starting nine it's in defensive areas we need to look at ourselves.'
The Guardian
04-07-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
My co-worker thinks her single friend should lose weight. Is not caring about looks ‘giving up'?
Hi Ugly, I recently chatted with a middle-aged co-worker about her friend who is unhappy being single and thinks she should lose weight. As Gen X women growing up in the 1980s, our biggest concern was weight and calorie counting to control it (now we can add wrinkles, yellow teeth and odd body hair to the list). When I (flippantly?) suggested encouraging the friend to accept her body as it is, my co-worker said, 'Well she can't just give up!' Giving up – that's another thing we Gen X women have always tried to avoid. Like looking at our moms in sweatpants and no makeup and thinking they weren't trying to be beautiful any more. My question: are there other words to describe acceptance of your looks as they are, at any age, or are we just truly 'giving up'? – Gen Acceptance One reason talk of 'giving up' leaves a bad taste in the mouth, writes psychoanalyst Adam Phillips in his book On Giving Up, is that it 'is felt to be an ominous foreshadowing of, or reminder of, the ultimate giving up that is suicide, or just the milder version of living a kind of death-in-life'. In other words: your co-worker unconsciously believes that a woman who gives up dieting might as well be dead. Forgive me (and Phillips – and, indirectly, Freud, the father of psychoanalysis) for being dramatic. But I think it's true! Maybe doubly true when it comes to physical beauty, which has long been framed as less ornamental than essential, particularly for women and gender non-conforming people. We often think of beauty as a declaration of self, a means of survival, a signifier of societal worth. It increases our economic and social potential. It opens doors and buys grace; it affords access and attention. To fall short of it, conversely, is to edge toward a kind of cultural erasure. Naturally, when one's appearance is rewarded and/or punished like this, it starts to seem as important as life itself. Or more important. Consider a quote from a 2024 Washington Post story on the renewed popularity of tanning beds, known to heighten users' risk of skin cancer: 'I'd rather die hot than live ugly.' (A rebuttal, if I may.) This conflation of beauty and life comes up quite a few times in your question, albeit in less extreme terms. You categorize weight loss and stray hairs as some of your 'biggest concerns'. You recall worrying about your mother not wearing makeup – which only makes sense if makeup is a symbol of something more. (The will to carry on, maybe?) Your co-worker implies that giving up on thinness must mean giving up on dating, which must mean giving up on love, which, well – why bother going on, then? Sign up to Well Actually Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life after newsletter promotion This is a bit absurd. (The unconscious is nothing if not irrational!) 'The daunting association' of giving up, Phillips writes, 'has stopped us being able to think about the milder, more instructive, more promising givings up,' of which there are many. Like giving up on maintaining beauty standards, for example. The pursuit of an unrealistic, often unhealthy and ever-shifting appearance ideal is something that paradoxically 'anaesthetizes' us to life, as Phillips might say, even as we think of it as offering more life (or more opportunity). Skipping meals to lose weight can deprive the body of nutrients it needs to function properly. Getting Botox to look younger can 'alter the way [the] brain interprets and processes other people's emotions'. Self-surveilling can train us to prioritize how we look over how we feel. 'In order to feel alive one might have to give up, say, one's habitual tactics and techniques for deadening oneself,' Phillips writes. In this sense, 'giving up' is exactly the phrase you're looking for, Gen Acceptance. Give up, you know, starving. Give up vitamin deficiencies. Give up calorie-counting, step-counting, mirror-staring. Give up sucking in and Spanx-shaped skin indentations. Give up middle-aged men who demand someone do any of the above in exchange for happy hour apps at Applebee's. More from Jessica DeFino's Ask Ugly: My father had plastic surgery. Now he wants me and my mother to get work done How should I be styling my pubic hair? How do I deal with imperfection? I want to ignore beauty culture. But I'll never get anywhere if I don't look a certain way If 'giving up' still doesn't sit right, try recontextualizing it as getting something back: time, money, energy, brain space, health – life, one might say. I'm not saying it's easy. Giving up can prompt 'very real suffering', as Phillips puts it. Quitting involves reassessing what we value, and this can get more painful with age. Maybe that's why your co-worker is so resistant to the idea of her friend accepting her body as-is. It might force her to ask herself: could she do the same? Should she? If so, what does that say about how she's lived thus far? Did she waste her one wild and precious existence thinking about dressing-on-the-side salads? Who is she if she's not thin, or at least trying to be? But if your co-worker isn't interested in reconsidering her beliefs, I'd give up trying to convince her. Because sometimes, giving up is good. Do you have a beauty question for Ask Ugly? Submit it anonymously here — and be as detailed as possible, please! Anonymous if you prefer Please be as detailed as possible Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information. They will only be seen by the Guardian.
The Guardian
03-07-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Not ‘giving up': Is there another way to describe accepting how I look as I age?
Hi Ugly, I recently chatted with a middle-aged coworker about her friend who is unhappy being single and thinks she should lose weight. As Gen X women growing up in the 1980s, our biggest concern was weight and calorie counting to control it (now we can add wrinkles, yellow teeth and odd body hair to the list). When I (flippantly?) suggested encouraging the friend to accept her body as it is, my coworker said, 'Well she can't just give up!' Giving up – that's another thing we Gen X women have always tried to avoid. Like looking at our moms in sweatpants and no makeup and thinking they weren't trying to be beautiful anymore. My question: are there other words to describe acceptance of your looks as they are, at any age, or are we just truly 'giving up'? - Gen Acceptance One reason talk of 'giving up' leaves a bad taste in the mouth, writes psychoanalyst Adam Phillips in his book On Giving Up, is that it 'is felt to be an ominous foreshadowing of, or reminder of, the ultimate giving up that is suicide, or just the milder version of living a kind of death-in-life'. In other words: your coworker unconsciously believes that a woman who gives up dieting might as well be dead. Forgive me (and Phillips – and, indirectly, Freud, the father of psychoanalysis) for being dramatic. But I think it's true! Maybe doubly true when it comes to physical beauty, which has long been framed as less ornamental than essential, particularly for women and gender non-conforming people. We often think of beauty as a declaration of self, a means of survival, a signifier of societal worth. It increases our economic and social potential. It opens doors and buys grace; it affords access and attention. To fall short of it, conversely, is to edge toward a kind of cultural erasure. Naturally, when one's appearance is rewarded and/or punished like this, it starts to seem as important as life itself. Or more important. Consider a quote from a 2024 Washington Post story on the renewed popularity of tanning beds, known to heighten users' risk of skin cancer: 'I'd rather die hot than live ugly.' (A rebuttal, if I may.) This conflation of beauty and life comes up quite a few times in your question, albeit in less extreme terms. You categorize weight loss and stray hairs as some of your 'biggest concerns'. You recall worrying about your mother not wearing makeup – which only makes sense if makeup is a symbol of something more. (The will to carry on, maybe?) Your coworker implies that giving up on thinness must mean giving up on dating, which must mean giving up on love, which, well – why bother going on, then? Sign up to Well Actually Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life after newsletter promotion This is a bit absurd. (The unconscious is nothing if not irrational!) 'The daunting association' of giving up, Phillips writes, 'has stopped us being able to think about the milder, more instructive, more promising givings up,' of which there are many. Like giving up on maintaining beauty standards, for example. The pursuit of an unrealistic, often unhealthy and ever-shifting appearance ideal is something that paradoxically 'anaesthetizes' us to life, as Phillips might say, even as we think of it as offering more life (or more opportunity). Skipping meals to lose weight can deprive the body of nutrients it needs to function properly. Getting Botox to look younger can 'alter the way [the] brain interprets and processes other people's emotions'. Self-surveilling can train us to prioritize how we look over how we feel. 'In order to feel alive one might have to give up, say, one's habitual tactics and techniques for deadening oneself,' Phillips writes. In this sense, 'giving up' is exactly the phrase you're looking for, Gen Acceptance. Give up, you know, starving. Give up vitamin deficiencies. Give up calorie-counting, step-counting, mirror-staring. Give up sucking in and Spanx-shaped skin indentations. Give up middle-aged men who demand someone do any of the above in exchange for happy hour apps at Applebee's. More from Jessica DeFino's Ask Ugly: My father had plastic surgery. Now he wants me and my mother to get work done How should I be styling my pubic hair? How do I deal with imperfection? I want to ignore beauty culture. But I'll never get anywhere if I don't look a certain way If 'giving up' still doesn't sit right, try recontextualizing it as getting something back: time, money, energy, brain space, health – life, one might say. I'm not saying it's easy. Giving up can prompt 'very real suffering', as Phillips puts it. Quitting involves reassessing what we value, and this can get more painful with age. Maybe that's why your coworker is so resistant to the idea of her friend accepting her body as-is. It might force her to ask herself: could she do the same? Should she? If so, what does that say about how she's lived thus far? Did she waste her one wild and precious existence thinking about dressing-on-the-side salads? Who is she if she's not thin, or at least trying to be? But if your coworker isn't interested in reconsidering her beliefs, I'd give up trying to convince her. Because sometimes, giving up is good. Do you have a beauty question for Ask Ugly? Submit it anonymously here — and be as detailed as possible, please! Anonymous if you prefer Please be as detailed as possible Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information. They will only be seen by the Guardian.
The Star
22-04-2025
- General
- The Star
Sunny Side Up: Don't chase the illusion of perfection
When he was asked a question about finding the ideal relationship, the Buddhist monk Ajahn Brahm replied with a story about a man looking for the perfect woman: He had a list of traits and qualities that he would check against women he dated. Some ticked a few boxes while others fell well short of his ideal. Finally, he met a woman who was perfect for him in every way. Unfortunately for him, she was also looking for the ideal partner.... Recently, I've been reading some posts on social media about finding 'the right person', which invariably includes a kind of roadmap or formula to set people in the right direction. While it's important to think about values and compatibility, I get the sense that for these people, relationships are something that should begin from a point of minimal effort so that the couple can get on with building a wonderful future together. But there's an asymmetry built into the quest for an 'ideal' that can quietly echo perfectionism. The notion that someone could be this ideal, and that they can simply be found, edges dangerously close to the consumer logic of modern dating. It's as if we're shopping for meaning rather than co-creating it, in the hope that we can avoid the intuitive messiness that people wade through to create a solid relationship. A piece of advice from aunts and uncles that would often irritate me when I was younger was, 'Don't think so much... just get on with life'. It can be simplistic in certain situations, but there's a lot to be said for the advice in modern times. With the growth of social media and dating apps, there's a feeling that everything should now be easily optimised and free from inconvenience. However, this can lead to amplifying perfectionism to the point where we spend more time analysing and less time living. British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips said that thinking and fantasising are seductive because they can make us feel like we're doing something without actually engaging with the uncertainty of taking chances and living life. Like the man in Ajahn Brahm's story, whether we're finding new friends or looking for a partner, if we always focus on the ideal then reality will never be good enough. We miss out on the person, the experience, the connection – the stuff that gives life its meaning – because we're too busy fixating on fantasy that will never exist. Another story Ajahn Brahm tells is of a father walking his daughter down the aisle. Just as he reaches his future son-in-law he says, 'Today, everything's perfect. You have a beautiful bride, but soon you'll learn of her flaws. Just remember, if she didn't have those flaws, she might have married someone better than you.' That story always stuck with me – not because it's cynical, but because it's honest. Everyone we meet has his or her flaws, just as we do. If we spend too long chasing the illusion of perfection, we risk bypassing the connection or love we desire. It's comforting to imagine that we can calculate our way into connection. If only we read the right books, follow the right guidance, or design the right checklist, we'll arrive at the person who simply fits. But real relationships don't arrive fully formed. They take time, patience, and the slow work of learning how to be with each other in all the complicated ways that life demands. We might 'find' someone in a café, at a bar, or online, but a relationship is built, not found. It grows from shared effort and the humility to know that we won't be the ideal partner either. Good enough in reality is better than perfection in fantasy. The more we try to get life exactly right, the more we risk missing the actual living of it. We can spend so much time thinking and planning that we never quite step into the uncertainty of life. We don't risk being seen, and we don't let others in. And so we trade the excitement of discovery for the illusion of control. French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote, 'Existence precedes essence'. We aren't handed meaning in advance. We create it through what we do, how we show up, and the choices we make. That applies as much to love as it does to life. Couples create their meaning together, step by step, moment by moment. So rather than waiting to meet someone who fits the fantasy, the challenge is to take a leap of faith into the reality and build something imperfect but real. We can think for as long as we like, but meaning only begins when we choose to act. Sunny Side Up columnist Sandy Clarke has long held an interest in emotions, mental health, mindfulness and meditation. He believes the more we understand ourselves and each other, the better societies we can create. If you have any questions or comments, e-mail lifestyle@ The views expressed here are entirely the writer's own.
Technical.ly
12-03-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
Meet the healthtech startups in Techstars' new AI-focused accelerator
Founders of emerging firms from Delaware to Buenos Aires have come to one of the healthcare industry's main mid-Atlantic hubs to take their AI-enabled ideas to the next level. Global entrepreneurship programming provider Techstars on Monday unveiled the inaugural class of its AI Health Baltimore accelerator. The program, supported by a partnership with Johns Hopkins University and regional insurance provider CareFirst, focuses on startups using AI to tackle issues in various parts of the healthcare and medical system. It wraps with a demo day on June 5. When it was first announced back in August, Techstars' Adam Phillips said the in-person, roughly three-month program would provide participants as much as $120,000 in funding, along with mentorship, in exchange for about 6% to 9% equity. 'The recent 'blossoming' of artificial intelligence has taken a number of folks by surprise, but AI has been around for a long time,' said Phillips, the managing director of Techstars' other Baltimore-based accelerator with UpSurge Baltimore, at the time. 'It will have massive implications for healthcare where accessing currently unstructured datasets will help providers, payers, and patients alike make better healthcare decisions.' The cohort's participants are pursuing solutions for all the constituents that Phillips mentioned. Meet the nine companies in this inaugural group, with descriptions drawn from Techstars' announcement: Instead of Phillips, this program operates under the supervision of managing director Nick Culbertson and program manager Eden Ryan. Both leaders boast experience with Baltimore companies using AI solutions to tackle issues in different sectors: Culbertson recently exited his longtime role as the CEO and cofounder of healthcare risk-reduction company Protenus, which Alexandria, Virginia-based Bluesight acquired in January. Ryan is the former director of people operations at EcoMap Technologies, a Techstars Equitech Accelerator alum that incorporates AI into entrepreneurship resources-mapping platforms for clients including biomedical science associations. Despite this pedigree and the accelerator's location — the home of an Economic Development Administration -designated hub for medical technology and AI, as well as CareFirst's own Healthworx Accelerator — the cohort includes no Baltimore region companies. Techstars announced this accelerator amid a flurry of changes at Techstars that included laying off 17% of its staff and the closure of programs in partnership with JP Morgan.
