“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground

Written by Charles Yarbrough

10. You crouch when turning corners.

9. You look at the back of your vehicle to see if anyone is jumping on it.

8. During sex you chant like the Halo monks.

7. You call to tell your friends you not going to be able to play tonight.

6. You call your girlfriend to let her know you will be playing when she gets home.

5. You have a shirt with a halo dude tea bagging another.

4. You get drunk while playing Halo.

3. You ask others on Xbox live advise on your personal problems.

2. You have the Halo theme and Breaking Benjamin’s Halo song on your wake up CD

1. You consider naming your first born Master Chief

Here it is

Buried deep within GTA IV’s high-speed police chases, vehicular homicides, cold-blooded killings and large-scale armed robberies, there lie hidden gems of wisdom that you can apply to improve your own life in the real world.

1) If you wanna make an omelet, you gotta break some eggs. GTA IV teaches you that when you want to accomplish something, you should go for it without worrying too much about stepping on other people’s toes. When you carjack an old lady and only have 30 seconds to make it from the gun store to the respray shop, some people are gonna get run over in the process. If you want your boss’s job, you might have to get him fired before you get the position. When you get what you want, people may get hurt. It comes with the territory.

2) Trust no one. Everyone you meet has an agenda. Let me repeat that. Everyone you meet has an agenda. Of course, some may have a more malicious agenda than others. Regardless, everyone around you is almost always looking out for #1: themselves. Look at Ghandi — that guy was practically begging to get 15 minutes of fame with some sort of “MTV True Life: I’m a Revolutionary Peacemaker” documentary. Think about it. GTA IV lets you experience “friends” lying, cheating, stealing and stabbing you in the back to get what they want. Only trust yourself.

3) Plan for the best, but prepare for the worst. Pretend you’re in GTA, you just got assigned a new mission, and you envision yourself kicking ass: running, ducking, diving, all while taking out gangbangers with expertly timed shotgun blasts and never getting a scratch on you. So do you walk in to the gun fight with one-third of your health, no body armor and low ammo? Hell no. You stock up. You prepare for the worst. Shit, buy some rocket launchers while you’re at it. Why not. In life, you never know what could go wrong. It always pays to be prepared.

4) The more nice shit you have, the more people respect you. We live in a shallow society folks, and GTA IV understands this by letting your character get all types of shit that doesn’t have anything to do with the actual game. You can buy nice suits & expensive shoes, move into penthouse bachelor pads, and of course, drive baller whips. If you pick up a chick on a date (yes, the game lets you do this), she’ll verbally tell you how impressed she is when you pull up in a luxury car similar to the one 2Pac got shot in. Art is modeled after real life guys. People notice these things. Respect yourself by getting some nice digs.

5) Get revenge when it counts. Don’t let people walk all over you. Donald Trump has touted this for years, and its actually good advice. If people know they can screw you and you won’t do anything about it, prepare for it to happen with greater and greater frequency. If someone wrongs you, get them back, and make absolute sure everyone sees it so they know you’re not one to be messed with. In GTA IV when someone disrespects your crew, you don’t sneak around and poison their morning tea — you roll up right on the basketball court and blow his brains out in front of all of his homies plus a few random bystanders. See how everyone else runs away? This is called leading by example.

6) If you want something, you have to work for it. America is the land of opportunity, not the land of uh-here-take-this. Don’t expect things to be given to you on a silver platter, or for the world to be fair. Sometimes when you want something, you have to be prepared to take it. When Niko arrives in Liberty City, he has nothing. By the middle of the game he’s got a highrise apartment and a pile of money, not to mention tons of guns and bitches. Get out there and fight.

7) Go off the beaten path. Don’t blindly follow the guidelines that society lays out for you. If you followed every traffic law in GTA IV you would get so bored playing that you’d eventually turn off the game, which in real life would be the equivalent of killing yourself. Make life interesting. Think outside the box. There’s no one right way to do something. Steve Jobs took the mobile phone market and turned it upside down with the iPhone, a device no one had ever seen before. In one GTA IV mission, Niko dresses up as a gay guy to take another gay man out on a date for the sole purpose of killing him. This type of unorthodox thinking is what you need to succeed in the work place as well as in life. Make it happen.

• Don’t eat rocks.
• Don’t take naps in the road.
• Don’t stoke fires with your fingers.
• Don’t throw a brick straight up.
• Don’t breathe car exhaust.
• If you ever meet the President, don’t offer him the surprise gift of a firearm by whipping it suddenly out of your coat pocket.
• For all pertinent tasks, use a hammer, not your fist.
• Walk around toxic waste dumps, not through them.
• Don’t stargaze with friends on a hilltop in a thunderstorm and use metal fishing rods as pointers.
• The stuff on the bottom of your shoe is not for internal consumption.
• If you need to get somewhere, and a freight train heading in the direction you’re traveling just happens to be nearby, resist the urge to stand in front of it and grab hold as it passes.
• If you want to pound on the radiator to tell the landlord to turn up the heat, don’t do it with your head.
• Don’t flip off the Mafia.
• If you’re riding a bicycle down a hill, turn your head before you spit.
• Wash behind your ears, not behind your eyes.
• Light birthday cake candles from back to front.
• Just because your body has orifices doesn’t mean you should put things into them.
• Don’t stick screwdrivers into electrical outlets.
• Although they are sold in grocery stores, batteries are not food. Do not break them open and drink what’s inside.
• The warning “Don’t try this at home” really means “Don’t try this at all.”
• Don’t bathe in a tub full of snow.
• Don’t iron clothes while wearing them.
• The expression “Life in the fast line” should not inspire you to live in the road.
• Don’t eat hot coals.
• Don’t escape in to jail.
• Don’t wash floors with cough syrup.
• Don’t kick porcupines with bare feet.
• Don’t sled down hills with interstates at the bottom.
• Sell at most one of your kidneys.
• Don’t lie down in a cattle pen.
• Forks need carry food no farther than your mouth.
• Don’t test the strength of your skull with a nail gun.
• Only squeeze the handle end of a sword.
• Don’t snap towels at passing cops.
• Don’t lick dry ice.
• Don’t pour salt in your eyes.
• Don’t microwave yourself.
• Don’t chase a bear into the woods to get a close-up photo.
• Don’t swallow toothpaste.
• Don’t chew Tylenol.
• Don’t bathe in gasoline.
• Don’t sneak up to a stallion and whack it on the rump.
• Don’t drink water that comes from swimming pools, puddles, bathtubs, dishpans, sewage pipes, radiators, oceans, acid rain, or toilet bowls.
• Don’t lick toads, bulls, or jellyfish.
• Don’t go swimming in a well.
• Don’t use the gum from underneath the seats at schools and movie theaters even though it’s free.
• Don’t kick stone walls very hard without wearing thick-soled shoes or boots.
• When using an acetylene torch, don’t feel the flame to see if it’s sufficiently hot.
• Better yet, stay away from acetylene torches altogether.
• Wear clothes.
• Use a pot holder when removing items from the oven.
• If someone shouts “Heads up!” don’t actually raise your head up. Cover it with your arms and duck.
• Don’t drink and drive.
• Don’t tie yourself to an airplane propeller.
• Don’t brush your teeth with a wire-bristled sanding wheel.
• When using a blow gun, draw your breath before placing your lips around the barrel.
• No matter how tempting it is to be one with nature, stay on the outside of all fences at the zoo.
• When sticking thumb tacks into bulletin boards, press on the flat end.
• Do not put butter or jam on the bread before placing it in a toaster