Do It Now! Quick!

I am impulsive. Go home there's nothing to see here. We're closed for the day.

You can thank the green part for all your impulsive fails.

Not good enough? Fine, let's talk about what it means to be impulsive and why someone might be be driven to do things without thinking about them. I thought this topic was going to be pretty straight forward. An open and shut case of, you're impulsive because you're not very smart, end of story. Turns out impulsivity is a very real neurological topic that many scientists have taken their time out to understand (how kind of them)

The story is that impulsive people tend to be ADHD, bipolar or have substance abuse problems. I don't have any of those chronically although I'm sure we all have them in varying degrees. The function of being impulsive in normal behavior is as a survival method. You're standing in front of a pool. It looks freezing and jumping in will help you escape the heat of the day. If you stop to think about how cold it might be or how deep the water is; getting in becomes a lot more difficult than say just jumping in impulsively. Maybe not the best example, but you get what I'm saying.

Oh hypothermia, what fun!

Impulsive behavior can be split into five categories. Positive Urgency; you're feeling good about yourself so you buy that awesome cellphone (except you already have one). Negative Urgency; someone you care about seems down so you rush to save them only to find they not down and you hurt yourself more. Lack of Premeditation; you jump into a rock pool without checking how deep it is and break every bone in your leg...genius. Lack of Perseverance; you decide you're going to start doing gym, but two days later you stop. Sensation-Seeking; you're a bugchaser and you're GOING to die a horrible death. I'm sure breaking it down like this has made it easier for you to identify because I'm sure we've all done impulsive things.

Be sure that you will still make impulsive actions, good or bad. Go with it, if the consequences bite you then deal with it because that's who you are. We are the sum of our actions. As long as we're sincere about our goals, taking stupid actions only adds to our sincere nature. The people who can't forgive us aren't worth it.