Like Tony Soprano

Tony Soprano kept people guessing, and that made all the difference.

He could be sensitive, he could be tough, but you never knew what he would be in a given situation.

My favorite example of that was the episode when Adriana had to be killed. She was tortured inside because she had been coerced into spilling her guts to the FBI. This had been going on for a while and she felt trapped.

When she couldn't take it anymore she confessed to Christopher, hoping they could disappear in the witness protection program and start the new life away from the mob that she always wanted.

But Christopher was deeply loyal to Tony, respecting the blood oath he had taken. After slapping Adriana around a bit, he takes off saying he needed to go for a ride to clear his head.

He goes straight to Tony. Opens up in Tony's basement, through tears. Tony's first reaction is to rip Christopher's shirt open to make sure he wasn't wired. Christopher is crying, emotionally bruised and says "T, how could you even think that?"

Next thing you know, Tony is comforting him. Christopher cries and begs Tony not to make him "do it." They are talking about killing Adriana in vague terms, but the meaning is crystal clear. The woman Christopher loved, the woman he trusted.

Tony sends Christopher off and Silvio ends up taking care of business in one of the most emotional scenes in the Sopranos run.

Everybody loved Adriana (especially men). Nobody wanted her dead. But it had to happen.

Later, Christopher is sitting in Tony's office as Tony walks in. Tony looks at him and realizes he has consumed some heroin (after having been off the stuff, kind of, for a while).

Christopher explains that he just snorted a little because he is in so much pain.

Tony hauls off and hits him, knocking him off the chair. Then he kicks him a couple of times for good measure.

Saying: "You think you are the only one hurting over this? You think you are the only one affected?"

Excellent stuff. We could all learn from Tony Soprano.

That's how you live a life. That's how you survive. You have to keep people off balance. Otherwise they characterize you in a specific way and you become trapped. You actually become invisible.

They know how you will react in any given situation so they dismiss you as a human. They can ignore you because they will always know what to expect.

But if you slap them when you should be hugging them, when you hug them when you should be slapping them, they don't know what the hell to expect.

That makes them wary and you dangerous. Unpredictable.

That's how you clear out some space in this world. Jittery people stand off to allow space for random reactions.

A healthy mix of violence, verbal abuse, tenderness and random acts is a recipe for survival.