The word proactivity is fairly common in management literature, but you won’t find it in the dictionary. It means that as a human being you take responsibility for your own life.
Look at the word responsibility: ability to choose your response, response-ability. Effective people are proactive because they take responsibility. Their behavior is a product of their own decisions, based on values, rather than being a product of their own conditions, based on feelings. For instance, you are planning a picnic with your family. You’re excited. You have all the preparations. You’ve decided where to go, and then it becomes stormy, killing your plan. Proactive people carry weather within them. They realize what their purpose really was, and they creatively have a picnic elsewhere even if it’s in their own basement with some special games, and make the best of that situation. The opposite of being proactive is to be reactive. Reactive people would say, “What’s the use?” “We can’t do anything.” “Oh, this is so upsetting after all of our preparations and arrangements.” They try to persuade the people around them and usually the picnic will be cancelled.
Being proactive is really just being true to your human nature. Your basic nature is to act, and not to be acted upon. That’s true, despite widely accepted theories of determinism (宿命论) used to explain human nature. Determinism says that you don’t really choose anything and that what you call choices are nothing more than automatic responses to outside conditions.
The language of reactive people is like: “I can’t.” “Don’t have time.” “I have to.” “I must.” The whole spirit of that language is the transfer of responsibility. They think things are determined by their environment, or by their conditions or their genetic (基因的) makeup. Psychologically, people who believe they are determined will produce the evidence to support the belief, and they increasingly feel victimized and out of control. They’re not in charge of their life at all.
On the contrary, a proactive person exercises free will, the freedom to choose the response that best applies to his values. In that way, he gains control over the circumstances, rather than being controlled by them.
According to the passage, a proactive person’s behavior can result from ______.

A．the environment	B．an inner belief
C．the genetic makeup	D．a temporary feeling

When a picnic plan is threatened by a sudden storm, reactive people will probably ______.

A．have the picnic as planned

B．make the best of the picnic

C．complain and give up the picnic

D．find somewhere else for the picnic

What does “carry weather within them” in the second paragraph probably mean?

A．Manage to improve the weather.

B．Give in to the weather passively.

C．Stress the influence of the weather.

D．Find a solution to the weather problem.

The characteristics which can describe what a proactive person is like could be ______.

A．independent, cautious, flexible

B．flexible, confident, sensitive

C．independent, active, confident

D．generous, responsible, determined

It can be concluded from the passage that determinists ______.

A．accept things passively

B．are in charge of themselves

C．are similar to proactive people

D．respond to outside conditions actively

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