THE VERY PREDICTABLE PATH
AND THE PREDICTABLE RESULTS IN LIFE...UNLESS...
IT'S ALL MECHANICS
In the real world, everything happens according to the laws of the physical real world. Accordingly, everything happens in a sequence, where one thing causes the next thing and so on, to end in a "result". Specific "steps" cause specific results to happen. To put it another way, if we want specific results, we need to follow the specific steps that get the specific results (just like a recipe). (Read 1 2 3 4 = Success, Anything Else Does Not.)
If someone keeps on doing the specific steps one has done in the past, the person will keep on experiencing the same results as were caused in the past. To believe otherwise makes one subject to Einstein's (attributed) truism: "Insanity is keeping on doing the same thing, but expecting different results."
THE SAME PATH, UNLESS...
If one does keep bringing in "intervening forces" that have a positive effect on momentum, then one will do well.
If one does not, then it is absolutely true that one's "past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior" UNLESS... In other words, one will stay on the same path until he is sufficiently knowledgeable and exerts the effort to change the path! (Duh!)
One will only be able to change one's path significantly if one either gets very lucky with an outside intervening force stepping in or if one makes The One Decision That Determines All Of Life, which essentially is to embrace and live The Growth Mindset of continual, aggressive, rapid learning about life and what works. To implement that effectively, the person needs to set aside the necessary time and not fool himself into thinking that fitting the learning into all the cracks (openings in time where there is nothing filling the space of possible to do's) will work. The latter definitely will not work and is a path to failure!
HOW MUCH TIME, AT WHAT SPEED?
This brings up the question of "degree" and what speed and diligence is the best and what are the lower levels of benefit, some of which are deficient, that we should not settle for.
If we implement suggestions very slowly and learn only a little here and there that must mean that we are leaving alot of the great potential of life "on the table" (meaning that we are not taking for our own benefit some of the great things that are very possible in our lives).
You'll get "not very different results" if you only do little changes in steps... (Duh!)
THE ACTUAL PATHS - AND THE LEVELS OF LIFE
If we were to graph out the various paths, at the very bottom are a number of paths where there are no good inputs and/or there are bad inputs. At that level, there is nothing that will train man to do more than is in our primitive nature. At this level people are not trained into social cooperation or even knowing what is best for them personally. They are not using their higher brains and the higher potentials of man, and are living closer to an animal level.
If they have really bad inputs, they become the lowest: terrorists and the worst criminals. They do not know how to think or cooperate for the greater good or the long term results.
If not trained by their mothers, men can be brutal and abusive. (Women tend to be able to learn on their own in group interactions to be of a better nature.)
If in a culture of poverty or one of victimhood, one learns to do the same behaviors of those around him/her - and will have a hard time breaking out of it, for he/she will not know better. Only a very strong, sustained intervening force can make a difference, and usually to not a large percentage difference. That part is sad, but seems to be borne out by the facts, the actual results over time.
The normal culture obeys the basic laws and does social cooperation, but has not learned alot about living life so they have many false beliefs about life and do not have the perpspective and insights necessary to avoid addictions. 2/3 of Americans are overweight (1/3 are obese) not so much because of "addictions" per se, but because of the availability of "plenty" (of food, drugs, etc.). Our bodies evolved only to the state of the world about 10,000 years ago, which made it mandatory that we eat as much as possible when it was available in order to save up for the frequent famines or lesser eating periods. Unless we are trained in self management and in how things work and how to work them this will only get to be worse. We'll all be Pokeymen (aka "El Blobbo"), as availabilty in abundance rises and as life gets progressively easier.
DISSIPATING PATHS, EXCEPT FOR A FEW OF US...
There will be perhaps somewhere around 10% or less of us who are blessed with a highly progressive, enriched childhood and have started off and stayed on the higher paths. Those people were lucky as they won the lottery of being born into the right families and places.
And there will only be a few who have reached the level of living on a growth curve that bends upward and rises about the upward but straight lines of the top 10%. These will be, probably, "the 1%", not in money, but in terms of personal enrichment. Their personal happiness will have compounded like the wealth of the 1% in money terms. Those people will be the ones who had adopted The Growth Mindset and made The One Decision That Determines All Of Life - and they'll be those with a systems mindset, having learned how reality actually works and then working it to their benefit. These people will be 100 times happier and more fulfilled than the average person.
(A "systems mindset" is one where we see all that happens as part of a system, or a process that is sequential with all the parts working together to get a result. A person with that mindset looks to see how the systems of life work and is constantly improving, or "tweaking" them to work better and better for themselves, thereby making life work better and better - and automatically and effortlessly, such that they are able to have lots of extra energy for other things in life that are valuable to them. See Work The System (book, get a free copy) - note that working the system works both in organizations but also in life. Play the systems game and you'll be a big, big winner in life! See 1 2 3 4 = Success - Anything Else Does Not.)
BUT WHO CAN PARTICIPATE IN "BENDING THE CURVE UPWARD"
Except for a very few of us who are genetically handicapped, we all have the basic equipment to be in the 1%. Whether we reach that level will depend upon our having had the good fortune (luck) to have positive intervening forces that were powerful enough to change us forever to the level of a sustaining upward growth curve to achieve and live at the self actualization level on Maslow's hierarchy. At that level, we are fully self-directed and expressing ourselves fully, unimpeded by fear or social pressures and judgments. We are truly fulfilled and make sure that that continues.
That level of living life is what I am suggesting you can have - and that you should not accept less.
For the person reading this, I invite you to study hard to learn and then choose the growth mindset. As you live the growth mindset and become wiser, you will also choose to live in the systems mindset, where you'll see the reality of life and how it works. And you'll have the perspective to live life without fear and no artificial limitations and only with prudence and power, able to create virtually any result you truly want in life.
And that is really and truly living life at the highest!
