Cody Delistraty

Anytime we’re being served, whether it’s at a restaurant, department store, or at Starbucks, the way we treat those who are serving us speaks loads about our character.

Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.

Apple CEO Tim Cook gets up at 4:30 a.m., Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is at the office by 6 a.m., even Ben Franklin was up at 5 a.m. famously waking up and asking himself each morning, “What good shall I do this day?”

What they’d done was created the myth of Paris, of an aristocratic, elegant, otherworldly paradise, a false ideal Americans have sought after ever since.

Nothing keeps you as anxious as feeling like you need to constantly spend money.

A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony; then from matrimony to that sticky, glowing night culminating in pleasure.

When we idealize poverty, we confound simplicity with happiness, and that is both naïve and, more often than not, quite offensive.

Thirty minutes of Mendelssohn or one dose of Valium? It’s your pick because, according to a study at the University of Baltimore, both the music and the drug have the same anti-anxiety benefits for heart patients.

Now before you go thinking that I’m some horribly calculating automaton, first stop and think about how beneficial this kind of universal self-centeredness is.

A sort of 1984 for the Amazon.com generation, DFW’s over-a-thousand-pages opus deals with the state of a world that’s entirely steeped in advertising and consumerism.

Studies have shown that looking at pretty things like rolling hills, supermodels, and shiny cars significantly boosts one’s happiness.

The Paris versus New York debate ever rages on and below-the-belt remarks are tossed like grenades across both sides of the Atlantic.

When we live and travel abroad, every little nuance — the cracks in the sidewalk, the smell of fresh pastries, the wide horizon in the distance — all seem new.

Keeping those expectations measured. Well done, old sport.

Charisma isn’t something that anyone inherently has. It’s something that’s given you by those who respect you and what you have to say.

4. Using Facebook Too Much

A bicep squeeze, a longing stare, even a full-on, up-and-down check out will be taken as a compliment. In this instance, we’re all for being objectified.

The world has continued to spin, but it feels as though it has changed directions and begun to move backwards.