If everybody else is an asshole, why shouldn't you be too?

[valis]

Discuss.

[Dastard Stepchild]

1. If everyone else shoved broken glass shards into their eyeballs.....

I would refrain from doing that as well. It's all about what feels good to me. Being an asshole isn't on my list.

B-)

[valis]

2. Good answer.

However, generally, assholes hurt you too, not just themselves.

[Dastard Stepchild]

4. Point taken....

Assholes can inflict a world of pain on the people around them. Perhaps a rephrasing of my original thought is in order:

If everyone was shoving shards of broken glass into either their own eyes or the eyes of another, I would refrain from doing that as well.

I feel good about this comparison.

[fishnfla]

3. If they have one, they are one

which makes half of us dicks and the other half, well, um...and all of us assholes! Yip-yip-eeee

:woohoo:

[NMMNG]

5. Anger begets anger

And incivility begets incivility.

If they are a$$holes and you act like an a$$hole in return, nothing good will ever come of it. If they are a$$holes and you act like a civil human being, there is a chance things will change. Even if they do not, at least you have the satisfaction of knowing you did not stoop to their level.

[RevCheesehead]

8. thanks for that.

:thumbsup:

[TheProphetess]

10. Great screen name, Buffy!

:hi:

[MrScorpio]

6. No way

I won't lose any of my cool points over some asshole.

[Floogeldy]

7. I disagree with your premise

I only act like an asshole when nobody else is acting like one.

}(

[gizmo1979]

9. Who says I'm not?

:hide:

[Valerie5555]

11. If * is one why would I want to be one??????????????????

eom.

[Lars39]

12. Problem with that is people tend to not recognize their own assholiness.

They get a leetle tetchy and defensive.

[JimmyJazz]

13. It's called "the high road" - I try to take it whenever possible.

:)

[SOteric]

14. Integrity.

Integrity isn't about right and wrong in other people, it's about one's ability to live up to one's own ideals. If you personally believe that a thing is wrong, - to whatever degree, but engage in that activity regardless of your belief in it's wrongness, there is a flaw in your integrity. The more frequent, and the larger the transgression, the larger the flaw.

But there is a rub in the seemingly simple formula: That which one person feels as an individual is rarely seen to be objectively right or wrong. I think it's wrong to take the bath towels with you when you check out of a hotel, but many people see nothing wrong with this.

This becomes problematic when you boil it down because integrity rests with the individual, but 'assholishness' is always a flaw in someone else, not ourselves. We can only know when someone is behaving in a way that we think is not right. It's not within our abilities to know what the individual themself thinks of their behaviour.

In a perfect world, no one would ever do anything that they knew was wrong; no one would ever engage in behaviours designed to or likely to hurt others. In a perfect world, we would all be more sensitive to one another.

We don't live in a perfect world.

We don't live in a hellish world, either, though. And our lives here on Earth are made more bearable daily by myriad individual acts of integrity.

[ismnotwasm]

15. To put in perspective..

I just remember everybody (most everybody) HAS an asshole. Assholes are remarkable prone to one difficulty or another.

[Darranar]

16. Because two wrongs don't make a right...

If you're cruel to someone who's cruel to you, all you're accomplishing is a doubling of the cruelty.

[Dave Reynolds]

17. I am an asshole,

but in a very nice way.

[CornField]

18. Oh hell, I feel it coming on again

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Stage/2769/wav/ass2nite.wav

Were you born an asshole?
Or did you work at your whole life?

Either way it worked out fine
'cause you're an asshole tonight

[DS1]

19. Somebody has to eat and give all the rest of the assholes fuel

and a reason for existence. So, I consume in the name of asshole self-esteem.

[redqueen]

20. Love this.

:loveya:

[skygazer]

21. If your friend was going to jump off a bridge

Does that mean you have to?

Sometimes mom did know what she was talking about.

[jswordy]

22. Oh, everyone IS...myself included. It's all someone else's opinion. And...

...you can never please everyone.

There is an inherent duality in everything, so no matter its intention, any one act has lots of outcomes, simultaneously both positive and negative. And the range of outcomes are totally out of the control of whoever initiated the act.

Besides being able to perceive that, the key is to keep your inner landscape beautiful and your heart open. Not an easy task.