Adventures in My Mind
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Aug 13, 2001
My friend Jim has posted a rather lengthy theme on Karma. It seems he's dealing with a pretty heavy episode of being screwed royally by someone. I have no personal insight into the matter, but I'd like to examine what he wrote. To paraphrase liberally, he suggests that the fruits of being a "nice guy" are not always apparent. The reward, he says, may only be a good night's sleep. This is certainly true, but I think that Jim's good night's sleep is only the tip of the karmic reward iceberg.
That good sleep comes from the knowledge that you are not like that. While it's certainly true that you are no saint - Who is? - you know deep down that you are a "nice guy." You can truthfully say that you would never do to someone what was just done to you. When all is said and done you gain comfort from the fact that all you have to do is pick up the pieces, to clean up what the other person messed up. This is an easy task. We do it all the time.
But how does one stop being an asshole? This is the task left to the other person. Most of the time you can bet that they don't even know that they are an asshole so they don't even recognize that there is a problem; therefore, they will most assuredly be an asshole to someone else. It's a never ending cycle. They move from one event to another and from one person to another and leave behind a trail of damage to which they are totally oblivious.
How does that stop?
Only through a deep personal introspection that assholes aren't capable of or they wouldn't be assholes in the first place. This is were the nice guy's satisfaction comes in. You know that all you have to do is rebuild a little while the other person will always be an asshole. This may be of small comfort when you wish you could drop the world on their head, but there is a sense of personal triumph when you succeed despite their best efforts. Besides, you're a nice guy and shouldn't be thinking about dropping the world on someone's head anyhow.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 10:55 AM
