Part One. The Close-Range Character (Bin)
1. He obsesses over his myopic view of the world. The character becomes consumed by an obsession and obsession distorts perspective, common sense, and sanity. For example, professors go to grammar conferences and get into fistfights over a semicolon rule controversy. Or sports fans with different caps stab each other at sporting events. What started out as a fun game becomes so personal that people will kill each other.
A rich man obsesses over money and doesn't give his wife access to his secret accounts, a real tragedy, since he is murdered.
2. He acts on compulsion rather than cool, detached rational powers. When we talk about compulsion, we often have to look at unconscious motivations. In Bin’s case, he has a huge ego and he is a man who strains for significance and high regard. If you're compulsive, you're a slave to unconscious desires; you're not a free human being.
You have the personality profile of an addict. And one thing about addicts, they're all enslaved to demons they can't control. Bin would deny this. He would blame all his problems on other people.
3. He is fueled by the need for instant gratification. Bin does not have the adult’s poise or patience or ability to wait and let his enemy make the wrong move. The problem with instant gratification is impatience. Impatience makes you regret your actions. Like the basketball player who returned the hostility to a heckler and called the heckler a very bad name. The player felt instantly vindicated perhaps, letting off steam, but now by all accounts he'll be fined $100K.
4. He obsesses over the trees while forgetting to see the forest. When you stare at the trees too long, you forget that a forest fire is approaching or fail to see the general scenery around you. This impedes you from “knowing the situation.” Always know the situation. For example, in college I was very strict about my workout schedule and would go straight to the gym after Abnormal Psychology class. After taking an exam, a beautiful woman asked me to celebrate with her in the ale house, and I told her I had to go the gym. I failed to see the situation.
Number one rule in life: Always know the Situation.
5. In his need to fulfill his short-term goals, he sacrifices his more important long-term goals. Bin would rather humiliate his bosses for the short-term, even if it means compromising the living conditions for him and his family over the long-term. In America, spending in for short-term gratification leads to long-term debt. As of 2009, the average American has $15,500 credit card debt. His stupidity refers to the famous aphorism: Bite my nose to spite your face.
6. Short-term is related to ego; long-term is related to real self-interests. The ego does not know what it really wants, just as the self-indulgent man is not happy. The ego run amok means recklessness. The ego is a reckless beast. Professional athletes are coddled and worshipped, but their egos lack direction. As a result, over 75% of NFL and NBA players are bankrupt 5 years after retiring.
7. The Close-Ranger is less likely to succeed because he lacks self-control. For evidence of this, we can look to the Walter Mischel Marshmallow experiment. Children who could suppress their desire for one marshmallow would get two and later in life they became more successful.
8. The Close-Ranger is more volatile and is a slave to his emotional tumult whereas the Long-Ranger is more even-keeled. Once the Close-Ranger loses his temper, the damage he does in both words and actions is often irreparable. He tends to burn bridges and can never rebuild those bridges again.
9. The Close-Ranger always “shoots himself in the foot” and then has to rationalize his actions, blaming others for his own pettiness and volatility, making him defensive and angry toward others.
10. The Close-Ranger doesn’t take well to criticism from others and reaches the point where “everyone is wrong and I’m right.” Or he says, “I am a genius surrounded by a confederacy of dunces.”
11. The Close-Ranger tends to be centripetal, meaning he doesn’t mature, becoming a more and more intense version of who he already is, while the Long-Ranger tends toward growth, making him centrifugal.
Part Two. The Long-Ranger
1. The Long-Ranger sacrifices immediate gratification for long-term goals. He goes to college, languishes in poverty while his friends work full-time, knowing that in 5 years his friends will be cleaning his septic tank.
2. The Long-Ranger is indifferent to public approval, thus does not need to go into debt buying bling, using money that could have gone to his education. Instead, he focuses on his goals based on self-knowledge, not the adulation of others.
3. The Long-Ranger is not a slave of his own psychology and its concomitant compulsions. Rather, he is a student of psychology and is aware of the pitfalls of getting too absorbed by emotion. His ability to “read others” makes him a formidable adversary and gives him the weapons to tame his own demons. We all have demons from family conflicts, personal failures, regret, broken hearts, etc. The question isn’t whether we have demons or not. The question is do we have the tools to tame those demons. Honest self-introspection, which allows us take an unflinching inventory of our faults and weaknesses, is the beginning of taming our demons.
4. Long-Rangers can identify the foibles and dangers of Close-Rangers and tend to avoid them. Long-Rangers tend to hang out with other Long-Rangers. Losers like to hang out with their own because misery loves company. Winners are smart enough not get dragged down into the hellhole with losers.
5. Metacognition is the ability to step back and observe your behavior before you act on it: Writes Jonah Leher in the The New Yorker: “In adults, this skill is often referred to as metacognition, or thinking about thinking, and it’s what allows people to outsmart their shortcomings.”
There have been people who have wronged me and I was tempted to lecture them on their betrayals and shortcomings but I weighed the satisfaction of lecturing them with the consequences of lecturing someone who is a narcissist and is not going to change, no matter how right I am. Lecturing such people will simply add drama to the equation and drama will give me more headaches than I already have to deal with. So my decision was to burn the bridge in polite silence.
6. Long-Rangers have intelligence plus self-control, the ability to suppress desire. Self-control and the ability to suppress impulses is part of being street smart. Pure intelligence isn’t enough. A lot of intelligent people are lost souls because they’re slaves to their emotions.
7. Long-Rangers don’t wait for the “right feeling” to take the right action. They perform the right action first. The right action is then followed by the right feeling. This in turn creates habits of self-improvement, contrasting with the Close-Ranger’s habits of self-destruction. Interview people and you’ll find people with discipline are happier than those who are shackled to the chains of laziness and random behavior. You need structure in your life to be happy.
Part Three. Lessons Learned from Walter Mischel Marshmallow Study (use for research paper if you decide on this topic)
Self-Control Is the Key to Success
Don't! The Secret of Self-Control
Part Four. Taking Another Look at Option 3: Write a 6-page research paper that contrasts the character who sees the big picture, a Long-Ranger, and one who is focused on the small picture, a Close-Ranger. Use people you know and characters from the novel to explain these two diametrically opposed orientations.
Suggested structure: In two pages, analyze the areas of your life that you are successful in exercising control to delay gratification and the areas where you're not so successful. Explain your successes and failures. In the third page, analyze the lessons we can learn from theWalter Mischel study. Then in your third page, analyze Bin as a Close-Ranger evidenced by ______________, ______________, ________________, and ___________________. Your Bin analysis will cover 3 pages for a total of 6 pages. Be sure to include a Works Cited page.
Part 5: Write down your 3 long-range qualities and contrast them with your 3 close-range ones. Or if you don't want to analyze yourself, use someone you know.
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