A little over two years ago I wrote this post about driving that ended up being controversial. I was writing about this thing that seems to happen in LA where you find yourself in side street traffic and look up ahead and realize it is completely and needlessly the fault of one person. Now, I’ve learned since then not to get so angry about it but I still don’t understand how it happens.

I mean, don’t they notice? Don’t they see that there are many people behind them and none in front? And if a car honks in frustration, how do they justify getting upset at them?

I still think its a good metaphor too. What kind of life is that? To be the person that prevents someone else from what doing what they want to do, even if you think that activity might be unnecessary or dangerous. You don’t get anything out of it. There is no award for ‘keeping those speeding teenagers in line.’

You could use a bunch of different examples to make this point. Etiquette in waiting rooms, or reclining the seat on an airplane are good ones but driving is my favorite. If people are trying to get past and you’re the impediment, you should pull over—just as if your political views block reasonable requests from reasonable people, you should reevaluate how you came to those beliefs. You certainly shouldn’t be offended that those people would have the nerve to be upset at you about it.

Survey the scene and ask if you’re the problem. It’s never fun to find out the answer is yes, but it’s better continuing it any longer.

Alinsky said that a strategist is born the moment a child first learns to play his mother against his father. It takes awhile to realize that some people never learn this. In fact, most people never learn this.

Another way to put it: in a house where parents have unpredictable rages, children learn that there is a third variable in the right and wrong equation. They learn that handling their parents reaction is just as important as the other two. They learn that appearances matter.

An asset to a company or an organization is someone who can look at a set of circumstances the way that a manipulative child would look at a situation. To see it in terms of what they can get away with – what has the best chance of getting through without being caught. Because ultimately, bureaucracy behaves a lot like bad parents. It is unpredictable yet predictable, it gives you room to maneuver and negotiate despite being, essentially, a constraining set of barriers to action.

It happens so often. You leave something up to someone’s judgment only to be surprised by the result: their decision was made without any mind to the world it was to exist in. An email that doesn’t consider the reaction of the person reading it. An advertisement that makes sense by the numbers but not what those numbers ultimately mean. And so on.

Those kind of people are common. They advance to a certain level and like a version of the Peter Principle, stop when they can no longer figure out how to advance. Lacking the ability to see outside themselves, they are crippled and blinded, unaware of the reality of the environment around them.

The key is to understand how truly critical that third variable is. That appearances do matter. That the context of a situation is almost overwhelming the part you need to grasp and control. And if you’re a young person, your ticket to skipping ahead lives in mastering that before you’re supposed to. Because without it you’re like everyone else and you’ll have to do things by their schedule and that means waiting your turn.

1) The Reading List Email is up and running and I’ve sent about 3-4 out. If you signed up and haven’t gotten any, send me an email and I’ll add you. People have been asking, so I’m planning to do a new one later this week. So far I’ve been recommending a lot of books I came across while researching for The 50th Law and stuff I’ve read while recently obsessed with classics and rare books.

2) I just ended a year and a half stint with a remote intern and am looking for a new one. My readership has turned over a few times since I took applications here last time and I am opening it up again. Before you send anything in read the following criteria I’m looking for: A young person with some tangible (emailable) internet experience. I’d prefer they be a fresh person I’ve haven’t dealt much with before (no offense to the regulars who I hear from all the time) and someone with some talent at thinking strategically and teaching themselves. Most importantly, you have to constantly be reachable – I am and you’ll need to be also. The fact that I really threw myself into stuff regardless of other commitments when I was 18 is maybe the only reason I was able to turn that little opportunity into this.

If this sounds like you, email me a couple bullet points about you – where you go to school; links to your delicious, FB, Twitter, site; where you live; authors you like; projects you’ve worked on. My last intern got to work with a whole bunch of important and famous people, paid on some contracting gigs, and had a chance to corner a really good market. Think of the position like an expanded research assistant job mixed with social media work and community organizing. It’ll cover all the projects I work on and please don’t ask what they are – you either get it at this point or you don’t.