The Art of Not Being An Asshole- A Straightforward Guide from a Reforming Asshole
Foreword-
Hopefully you read this before spending your hard earned cash on this book so you know what it will and won’t do.
If you are perfectly happy with who you are and see no reason to change anything at all about how you approach people or how you view the world, this book is not for you.
If this book was given to you as a gift or not so subtle suggestion, but you still don’t see a reason to be open to change, I recommend returning it or using it as a doorstop.
If you think back on situations and you feel like you could have handled them better…
If you feel like people keep telling you that you need to be a better listener…
If you feel like people keep telling you you’re insensitive…
If you feel like people keep telling you you’ve missed the point in a conflict situation…
If you feel like you can’t win…
If you don’t like yourself…
If you feel like you should be more invested in situations around you but just can’t…
If people tell you you’re an asshole…
If you aren’t offended by coarse language and are open to the idea of changing some behaviors about yourself you don’t like…
… yeah, you might want to keep reading.
I think I probably ought to start with why I feel qualified to offer advice here. After all, I’m not any kind of -ologist or -iatrist, and no -ologists or -iatrists were consulted as I underwent my journey to being someone I actually like. And I’m not perfect.. I have days where I fall into my old thinking patterns and have to snap back out of them. In some ways, I’m writing this as much to keep myself on track and accountable as I am to try to help others for whom iastrists and ologists just aren’t helpful or viable for whatever reason.
I was raised by two lovely individuals with narcissistic tendencies, who taught me all the important lessons about how to comport myself and be successful in life.
Yeah, that’s definitely sarcasm, in case you needed the note. What I learned was that no one was going to care about what I wanted or needed but me, so I’d best be on the lookout for number one. When you think about it from a certain point of view, that’s one of the key roots of assholism. You, for whatever reason, elevate yourself to the point that you are the center of your personal universe at all times no matter what. Side effects include the deep seated fear of being wrong, inability to connect with others in a meaningful way, and ongoing rotating groups of friends as people get to know you and then decide they don’t actually want to know you. (Don’t worry about that last one, sometimes it’s a side effect of rejecting toxicity on your own, we’ll talk about that later on.)
So how is it that I broke out of that mindset and made myself aware that there are others in the world that I don’t automatically outrank?
I almost died. Yeah, super dramatic, right? But it wasn’t a near miss car crash. My plane didn’t start falling out of the sky for a couple hundred feet. I didn’t almost get run over by a bus. It wasn’t one of those split second affairs that let me have the oh my god I could have died adrenaline rush and then go back to my life after a fantastic steak dinner and better sex like normal people get to do.
When I say I almost died, that means I laid in bed for two weeks, waiting for my body to decide if my own personal favorite and long running series was going to be renewed for another season or not. That kind of time gives you plenty of opportunity to think about how you got there. It really gives you plenty of time to think when you’re laying there by yourself, maybe because you’ve surrounded yourself with people just fucking like you. Because, as it turns out, they are the only ones that can fucking stand you and find all your not so charming behaviors to be normal.
You start to think about why that situation exists, and if that’s how you want to live the rest of your life. That is honestly how wrong things had to go for me to decide the person I was I wasn’t okay with anymore. I hope if you’re reading this and you identify with anything in that if section, that you’re smarter than I am and you don’t have to be in a place like that to make you want to roll up your sleeves and get started.
Here’s what is not going to happen in the pages of this book- I will not tell you all the answers lie outside of yourself. That means we won’t be acknowledging a higher power, destiny, The Gift, Celestine Prophecies, or any kinda voodoo wuwu stuff. No Wish It, Want It, Do It stuff happening here. (I’m going to say if you’ve come this far and want to keep going, you’re too damn smart for any of that junk to work anyway.) I’m also not going to use a bunch of big words and promise you if you just follow all these steps in order that you’re going to be all better forever. You’re going to do better if you want to do better. And you may find steps that work for you that I’ve never even thought of- and that’s fucking awesome. You do you.
I’m not going to pretend this is easy.
I’m also not going to try to convince you that you shouldn’t be an asshole. That’s your decision, full stop.
Here’s what will happen. I am going to talk about what worked for me to better understand who I was versus who I wanted to be and how I got there. I’m going to lay it out step by step in plain, kitchen English and if I can make you laugh along the way, so much the better. I’m going to talk to you like I’d talk to a friend, cause if you’re on this journey, you could use a friend and I’m there for you.
So, whenever you’re ready, let’s fuckin do this.
Curiouser and Curiouser 