Quotes About Behavior

Why do these people behave the way they do? To stay in control. As I mentioned in Chapter 2, irrational people—especially those who are firmly in the grip of crazy—are terrified of losing control.

An irrational person's M.O. is a weapon. However, it's also a weakness because if you can figure out the person's M.O., you can turn this information to your advantage.

People who were coddled often are needy or manipulative or become highly emotional when they're expected to do something they don't want to do.

People who were constantly criticized often become bullies or know-it-alls, or become rigidly logical and practical.

When you understand irrational people's M.O.s, it'll be easier for you to realize that their weeping, coldness, whining, withdrawal, or attack-dog behavior isn't really about you. Instead, it's about them and their need to feel in control.

identifying an irrational person's M.O. gives you considerable power over him.

The more anxious and alone or inadequate and incompetent they feel, the more tenaciously they hold to whatever thoughts, attitudes and behaviors bring relief. If they do not develop more effective coping mechanisms, the ones that bring relief solidify into self-defeating behaviors.

In triunal rigidity, your three brains become aligned with a reality that isn't the one you're currently facing. This leaves you trapped in thought patterns that don't make sense in the present and stops you from accurately processing changes in the future. The result? Chronically crazy behavior—that is, doing the same things over and over and expecting a new reality to change back into the old reality in which those things worked.

Self-involvement is usually at the root of self-defeating behavior in relationships.

Self-defeating behavior occurs when we fail to learn the lessons that life tries to teach us. It represents the victory of impulse over awareness, immediate gratification over lasting satisfaction, relief over resolution. Self-defeating behavior invariably begins as an attempt to make ourselves feel better. It is a coping mechanism.

Since self-defeating behavior goes back to the childhood experience of being alone and defenseless, it is easier to overcome it in adulthood if you get support from other people. The actual role your helpers play doesn't matter. They can assist you directly, provide moral support or agree to hold you accountable for the changes you vow to make. What's important is that you know you're not alone. This will strengthen your confidence and determination.

What people say and do in the most innocent situations can speak volumes about their real selves.

Worldliness is often defined in terms of certain behaviors, such as gambling, going to certain movies, wearing certain kinds of clothes, and so on. But worldliness goes much deeper. It's a mindset, or attitude. Of course, this attitude reveals itself in actions, but worldliness begins as an attitude. A concise definition of worldliness is a love for passing things.

Ephesians 4:26-27 gives us clues that demons can gain a foothold in our lives by our behavior. "Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.

Your genes are not your destiny. They load the gun, but your environment pulls the trigger.

Booze makes you loud. It's written on the label: "Alcohol percent by volume."

Although we could implement all class behavior as method functions, operator overloading lets objects be more tightly integrated with Python's object model.

First, guilt-tripping doesn't work as a campaigning strategy. If you make people feel bad about what they do, you must give them a realistic and feasible alternative. Second, pragmatism beats purism. Every time.

Yet historical roots influence contemporary behavior and decisions for a city just as childhood experiences remain crucial to adult attitudes for an individual.

Increasing the Reliability of Observational Methods To be useful, observational

blushing propensity should correlate with measures of people's interpersonal concerns.

Consequently, statists relentlessly attack and manipulate the system with endless top-down interventions in human behavior, deceptive and outright false promises tied to government programs and entitlements, and coercive if not oppressive governmental actions, all intended to reshape not only society but the individual.

We are what we think. To change how people act, we must change what they believe.

and his presence, to always ask myself why people acted the way they did, and to look with compassion at the suffering that must invariably lie at the root of problem behaviors. I have found this invaluable in my subsequent dealings with other difficult people. My