Especially for the young and the lowest-skilled, minimum wage becomes a toll that prevents many from entering the work force and gaining the skills that can make a low income or middle class worker a high income worker. This is so obvious that one wonders why liberals keep championing the minimum wage cause.

In this media-drenched, multitasking, always-on age, many of us have forgotten how to unplug and immerse ourselves completely in the moment. We have forgotten how to slow down. Not surprisingly, this fast-forward culture is taking a toll on everything from our diet and health to our work and the environment.

Skating becomes more important to me every year. It's obviously harder as age takes a toll on the body and the brain, and I think because of that, competing becomes much more difficult. That's why those who stick around are always so appreciative of others' skating because we know how much work goes into it.

Since taking office, President Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that bringing Americans home is a top priority for his administration. The president and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo understand the terrible toll terrorist networks and pariah states like Iran take on our American hostages and their families.

An abnormality on a mammogram can turn a woman's life upside down, even if no cancer is ultimately found. At the very least, she will have to undergo more tests, usually with a biopsy as a first step. The procedure takes its toll in time and money and even more so in the stress it introduces into a woman's life.

I was born with a heart murmur. When I was 21, the stress of the career and traveling - the lack of sleep and just not eating right - had taken its toll. Our schedules had been pretty crazy for about three years, and there was no rest at all. So in order to continue on and, you know, have a life, I had to fix it.

Underground people pay a desperate toll finding out things nobody else has discovered yet. We run around like headless chickens looking for the next cultural fix to spiral around in before it gets appropriated somewhere else and becomes something it never was. There's this sort of one-upmanship in the underground.

Every day, we at the United Nations see the human toll of an absence of regulations or lax controls on the arms trade. We see it in the suffering of civilian populations trapped by armed conflict or pervasive crime. We see it in the killing and wounding of civilians - including children, the most vulnerable of all.

Grandmasters decline with age. That's a given. There is nothing special about the age of 40, but age eventually takes its toll. That much is clear. Beyond that, it's about how long you can put off the effects and compensate for them. Mistakes will crop in, but you try to compensate for them with experience and hard work.

This is a very stressful profession. Not just coaching, but head coaching at this level with all of the variables that you have on your mind 24/7, it does take a toll on your health and you have to be very cognizant about what's going on with your body and listen to your body and make sure that you take care of your body.

Sports exact too harsh a toll on our beautiful women. Like engendered species, they should be protected, and instead, we exploit them and demand they fly too close to the sun for our amusement. We send them into the arena for an exhausting three-setter, an 18-hole playoff, a 200th lap. The burnout factor is insurmountable.

That the Islamic State is guilty of horrific atrocities is common knowledge. But most Americans seem unaware of the human toll of our own actions, the consequences this has for our national security and our reputation, and that, too often, the civilian casualties we cause are the result of avoidable mistakes. This must change.

The effects of unresolved trauma can be devastating. It can affect our habits and outlook on life, leading to addictions and poor decision-making. It can take a toll on our family life and interpersonal relationships. It can trigger real physical pain, symptoms, and disease. And it can lead to a range of self-destructive behaviors.

I have a fear of labels. If someone labels me, I have to respond - do I acknowledge it, reject it, deny it, live up to it, and defy it? Labels can affect your ability to be yourself. If you're not careful, like I wasn't when I was young, that can take a toll on you. You find yourself conforming to everyone else's ideas of who you are.

Every morning when I woke up, I would pray, 'I have to throw today, please let there be no pain.' Those were very gloomy days. Meanwhile, the atmosphere around me had become, 'Is he faking an injury?' 'Is it a mental problem?' Those words made it extremely difficult for me to stop and rest, and it really took a toll on me emotionally.

I don't think we can fully understand just how much pressure is on these fighters' shoulders once they win the UFC title. It's a grind just to get to the title fight. You're not earning a lot of money, and the sport takes a real toll on your body. And then once you get the belt, you've got an army of fighters coming for you right away.

Obama seemed poised to realign American politics after his stunning 2008 victory. But the economy remains worse than even the administration's worst-case scenarios, and the long legislative battles over health care reform, financial services reform and the national debt and deficit have taken their toll. Obama no longer looks invincible.

Native Americans' families experience living surrounded, living in increasingly small reservations surrounded by the society that destroyed their civilization, and are still stigmatized. For decades and decades, for hundreds of years except in Indian schools, they weren't allowed to speak their language. That stigma takes a terrible toll.

The essence of procrastination lies in not doing what you think you should be doing, a mental contortion that surely accounts for the great psychic toll the habit takes on people. This is the perplexing thing about procrastination: although it seems to involve avoiding unpleasant tasks, indulging in it generally doesn't make people happy.

In our fast-forward culture, we have lost the art of eating well. Food is often little more than fuel to pour down the hatch while doing other stuff - surfing the Web, driving, walking along the street. Dining al desko is now the norm in many workplaces. All of this speed takes a toll. Obesity, eating disorders and poor nutrition are rife.

As it happens, Chicago is the nation's leader in municipal privatization efforts. That's right: The city that conservatives portray as the citadel of the power-grabbing, government-growing left has been selling itself off in pieces for years. It signed a 99-year lease for the Chicago Skyway, a toll road in the city's South Side, back in 2005.

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