Habit 1. Be Reactive

Reactivity often gets a bad rap in the world of communication. When people tell you that your work isn't up to par, you might react by punching them in the face or yelling obscenities. This isn't thought of as "professional" or "helping to facilitate a team environment." Reactive people live healthy lives by not penning up their feelings. Some reactive people aren't proud of their actions once they react, but in the long run, the expression of emotion is actually healthier for their development as interesting individuals.

Many professionals in the world stay calm in stressful situations while yelling and screaming inside themselves, but maintaining a calm demeanor on the outside. Studies tell us that if people keep up this lifestyle, and eat lots of saturated-fatty foods, they may well die of a heart attack. No one looks calm when they're clutching their chests and falling to death.

Reactive people can also die of heart attacks, but more often that is due to the mentally deficient people around them that cause volcanic reactions.

Reaction to events is what we remember in the long run. One interviewee for this piece told me of a "crazy, balls to the wall bar fight" he started in the 1970's.

"I took this Bud bottle and smashed it on the bar. When I held it up to the guy he said, 'Go ahead!' and his gang started to crowd around him. Likewise, my friends started to get my back, and once I slugged him with my other hand, we all charged at each other. I knew it would be a great fight. That's how I got this scar under my eye here."

"I can't remember exactly what that guy said to me to get the whole ball rolling, but I do remember all the events that followed, to a tee."

This is a prime example of how our reaction to moments stick with us long after any point is made. If you cherish these memories, you will be full of youthful glee when you're resting comfortably in old age.

And in the end, we've all learned from society's obsession with reality TV, that reactions are what make life interesting. Once you step back and assess a situation you put yourself at a loss for a true reaction. On one hand you're thinking things out clearly, but on another hand, you're not being true to yourself and who you are. If you use methods of human persuasion, like yelling, threats of violence, and ignorance, you will most certainly get a situation to turn in your favor, or at least bypass the situation by starting a more eventful one. There is no problem that you can't handle, and no problem that you can't control.

Habit 2. Live for the Here and Now

"There'll be time enough for rocking when we're old"
                        --Stephin Merritt

There's a person in every group who lives for the present, with no regard for the past and no concern for the future. More often these people enjoy great lives of fun and entertainment. Also, these people make their counterparts furious.

There is another group of people who look to the past. This is often thought of as a bad trait, but it isn't always a terrible situation. When you go to your high school reunion and everyone talks about the good old days, no one tells them to get off their asses and go base jumping. Some lucky souls are stuck in a past of joy and fun, longing for the days gone by. In a cloud of delusion, these people walk around with smiles and laughs for all they see and talk to. Still some live in a terrible past, where they were mistreated and robbed of good times. These people are the ones who desperately need attention before they die in that past they cling so tightly to.

But another group of people also lurk in the shadows, and that is those who look ahead. These people are often considering all possible consequences to an action and gaging what may be the best situation they could come into. This is a torturous existence, because if you're bound to get screwed by life, you can't stop it by taking plastic instead of paper. When you look ahead you only put yourself in a position to call your decision into question when things don't work out as well as you'd hoped. With that, you'll end up stuck in the past yet again.

We have to make different decisions every day of our lives, but not all of them affect our entire future. While some do require great thought, I find that it's always best to get a quarter and let gravity and probability decide your future for you. If you don't trust those two valuable and all-knowing natural occurrences, then be sure to get a person of authority, friend, or loved one to decide for you, that way you have someone to blame when your life goes in the shitter. And if things go well, you can pat yourself on the back for choosing the right person to make your decisions.

If you do want to plan for yourself, it’s cool too. When you take part in this make sure you only plan a day in advance. When you plan more than a day in advance you start to think about all those things you’ll have to do, then you get bogged down. Planning is a tempered beast when you woo her well, but if you’re belligerent and hit on her without care, then she’ll only screw you, and not the way that the metaphor may suggest.

Planning averts chaos—that is a good thing. Planning also breeds anal-retentiveness and a distinct lack of spontaneity, which some might conclude is “boring.” When you live your life on the road to moderate success, you’ll learn that a little bit of everything here and there is the best way to go. So always take a look at your daily schedule, if you feel like filling it up, go for it, otherwise flying by the seat of your pants is fun too!

Habit 3. Everything is Relative

It’s very easy for people to do important things first in this world. When your car breaks down, it’s a piece of cake to call up the mechanic and get it fixed. What you may not realize is that this luxury of getting things done efficiently is actually crippling your ability to think on your feet.

Let’s say your car breaks down and you lose your job and your friends and family start to hate you. Now how do you stand back and gage which comes first? Surely you need your job before you can get your friends back, otherwise you can’t do anything with them. But you need your car fixed before you can get your job, otherwise how will you get there? Then again, you can’t get your car to the shop unless someone takes you there, I mean you just lost your job, you can’t afford a tow truck. Why not just say, “Screw this,” and get a burger? (see chart)

Importance of events and ideas are all relative to the world and situations around you. If you go around worrying about how to keep in contact with your friends and loved ones that are hundreds of miles away, you’ll just go crazy; I mean we have telephones. Of course you probably don’t find yourself getting caught up in problems from the past that already have solutions. More often you might accidentally worry about the future. Should you buy a new TV, or will that clunker in the driveway die soon and you’ll need new wheels? Who cares? Buy the TV. You have an immediate problem, and no TV is just as detrimental as no car. The relativity comes in when you acknowledge that if the car died first, you’d replace that first.

If you deal with situations using this relative approach, then you’ll be in great shape in the present, and soon enough, your present will be the past, and you past would have kicked ass too. When dealing with people, this idea of relativity can be a hard one to deal with. As all ideas are relative to the world, people’s dispositions are relative to their ideas. It’s important for you to take into account these dispositions, which brings up another negatively charged word; stereotyping.

Regardless of your definition of the word stereotype, it is almost always used with a negative connotation, but moderately successful people wouldn’t make it a day without them. I’m not talking black people and chicken stuff here, believe me, racial stereotypes have no place in the moderately successful world, but when you meet a person, you can draw a number of things from them and use them to gage what type of person they are and how you can treat them.

For example, if you’re a waitress or waiter and you come to a table with a zesty, “How are you?” and a person gives you the details of his/her day, you can probably assume that this individual is a lonely person, or at least feeling neglected enough to tell you the gritty. You’re assuming this trait and assigning it to the individual, so you may not want to drop any contact information around the table. Instead, you may want to treat them well and let them know that someone is (at least) pretending to care (and hoping for a big tip).

GO ON TO PART III