Exploring Our Darker Side: Why Are We Assholes?

I. I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE THINKING

We all know the vibe in the air when we walk through the aisles of a bookstore, ready to buy. Similar to sitting in the theater and hearing the faint aspiring voice,

And we go somewhere we've never been before. Not just entertained but somehow reborn, together…the stories feel perfect and powerful because here…they are.

- Nicole Kidman

Gradually walking back and forth, having nowhere else to be, paying attention to eye-catching covers from an endless arrangement (of course, not judging them). Your eyes and fingers drag along slightly, hovering, taking note of what you have read and what you liked versus disliked. New stories, ideas, and chances are at your fingertips. You feel magical; the escape that our minds go to with books transforms us into unknown realities that bring a soothing sense of comfort. New realities, new worlds, and new love stories take shape in so many genres.

And right before you know it, you take a look and pause. Here you are...you made it to the ah fuck I know I should read it section

In the self-help genre, the therapy section, you have entered the you need to be better with your bullshit arena. Your thoughts are now firing in different directions; do I turn around? You want to change but have doubts. There is always a doubt. Escaping in fiction and feeling a deep connection to characters is so much better; it's releasing. The world is hard enough, living is too stressful, and love stories are enthralling. Fiction provides a break. Nonfiction is a bona fide beast, producing real battles. You're thinking, do I need this? Will this book really help me? Will I actually read this? Or Am I ready?

Falling under the generic category as the other collection of self-help books, you may think that this is going to be some sappy, overly positive, generic repeat of almost every book out there: how you're on this journey of life, and this is the first step on a whatever-step plan to achieve greatness!

Your inner lion. A quick start to achieving and exploring all of your goals! The key to goddamn success, baby! You’re going to sit here reading another person telling you that life in all of its glory is this giant gift you must appreciate every second of every day to be happy.

Okay, in some ways, yes, this is kind of that writing. But don’t jump ship yet, do not, and I repeat, do not, close out just yet. I am aware that the typical self-help route can go either two way.

1. The extremely positive and motivating direction, telling you how beautiful you are inside, no matter what—filling the pages with lovely and encouraging words that guide us back to our hearts. It has a poetic nature that warms the soul by wrapping it with reassurance.

2. Throwing facts and research at you, giving an explanation for the madness. Often, studies about people with whom we have little to no context give an expounding reason as to why we are the way we are, and as a whole, in society. A scientific approach to understanding yourself that causes breakthroughs and those aha moments.

Both are fabulous routes that I enjoy reading myself. It’s essential to read words stemming from love and to be reminded of trouble-free tips like journaling or meditation, and of course, facts backed by research never hurt. Both of those self-development approaches can lead you to your success. We should all take the time to appreciate the abundance of authors who give us guidance, motivation, and knowledge. I can geek out on these two paths, notably the research, for days on end.

So, where do I lie within those paths? Is what you might be asking yourself right about now.

Picture this:

To the left is path one: This path is flamingo pink and filled with fuzzy Truffula trees (from the Lorax). The sun is shining eminently bright, and there are cute fluffy animals everywhere prancing about (Think Bambi). Its blinding brightness and vibrant colors are all around. You look down this path and may think It’s almost too happy to be real. It’s kind of…fake?

Path two, to the right: A forest green path with sparkles of emerald purple. It has deep, dark colors filled with melting clocks (resembling the famous painting The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí), and it has an enchanting forest with little to no sun. Only some rays broke through the trees. This path looks alluring, astute, and ambiguous. Looking in this direction makes you think a lot… like, maybe too much. It's almost as if being here for too long will give you a headache.

And finally, the middle path, three, is filled with half-pink fuzzy trees and half-melting floating clocks. It is a hybrid path you may assume has the best of both worlds. It's an alluring forest with cute animals prancing around (maybe fitting into an Alice in Wonderland genre).

Note that this path isn’t less daunting but more so in the middle. If you're in a Jumanji-like weird scenario and you're looking at three paths, the choice is always yours. But my style is path three.

I know we want to be kinder and feel lighter in our lives, and we will all have different ways of wanting to achieve that, which is why there are so many paths. However, it is without question that we often get stuck on one of these paths, naturally, from the generic complications of life and not having enough time in the day. We have school, work, or sometimes both, and our social lives, and then, on top of it all, we are supposed to maintain physical health. We have continuous loops of expectations, causing us to lose sight of those self-development goals. So, it is expected to trail off on these paths. But there is one significance that needs to be absorbed, retained, and engraved into our day-to-day lifestyles: to be kind.

Frankly, path three is honesty; it's me telling you that in so many ways, we suck, that we are, without doubt, assholes. I know what you are thinking, well that wasn’t very kind of her. But this is an honest path, and to change, to have real change, we need to acknowledge the hard truths about ourselves: that we are living asshole lives. And being an asshole is not this fantastic, wild, and free, living in full expression of our true identities lifestyle that we have so convinced ourselves of.

I’m calling us out. You can have your hobbies, climb the corporate ladder, and express yourself as kindly as possible. This path, my path, acknowledges the bullshit from life, brings awareness to why you should want to be kinder, and, eminently, gives you perspective tools in doing so.

II. WHY ARE WE ASSHOLES?

The reality of living lighter, happier lives is learning that ignorance isn’t bliss and, instead, it’s hiding in our pride. In this case, the ignorance that we are all assholes.

We act more and more monstrously over time: cruel, unforgiving, and entitled. I mean sincerely, all of us, in some capacity, have this darkness inside that is becoming habitual. If you aren’t aware of your monster, you should be. This version of yourself occupies a space in the mind. This consumption of the mind is so intense it alters behavior and projects. We all see, or at least should, the monster inside us.

I’m not talking about the people whose entirety of their personality is openly monstrous: the racists, homophobes, transphobes, and overall dogmatic individuals who refuse to be anything but a monster. They are merely assholes who have gone too far down the rabbit hole of ignorance.

No, we won’t even go there.

I'm referring to the everyday people who have moments of monstrous behavior. The man in the restaurant making a ruckus over a mistake, the overwhelmed mom screaming at the customer service operator over the phone with her other abundant responsibilities nagging at her side, the person sobbing to the person next to them as you pass by on the street, or the strangers on the internet in the comment section. Of quite literally any post.

One viral post on any social media platform is a nasty place filled with vulgar and unnecessary hate (and no, you aren’t helping any situation by adding your comment; you are unmistakably participating in online bullying).

Or maybe your monster is so cruel that you are unaware of those around you. You don’t care to see how everyone around you is acting. Your monster is so powerful it takes every opportunity to turn your thoughts against you; you are in a constant trance. You might ask yourself now, are you a monster to yourself?

With the growing number of people on the planet, these moments of erratic behavior are more apparent in our day-to-day lives. We agree that it makes sense: the more people equates to having more mayhem. With the increased frequency of out-of-pocket behaviors from everyday folk, the more it evolves into a regular part of our days. And the more we see other people act out, which we have convinced ourselves is acting honestly to our so-called true selves, the more we allow ourselves an excuse to do the same.

When looking at the man in the restaurant scenario, you saw him complain, the manager brought him out, and he got his meal taken off the bill. I mean, you have bad days, too, and don’t ever get a free meal because you keep quiet, but now this man gets a free meal for being an asshole? So subconsciously, the next time you have a rough day and someone messes up, you cause a similar scene. You wanted a free meal because you had a bad day, and other people do it, so why not?

But maybe you didn’t notice the waiter absent for ten minutes because they were so distraught by the situation. They were so busy in their shift, in the weeds, and they made a mistake on that man's meal. They are now more overwhelmed, taking time in the bathroom to look in the mirror, convincing themselves they can finish the shift. Figuring out how to explain what happened to the manager. Because of the man yelling over a mistake. Suddenly, you become the individual yelling over a mistake. You, at the moment, don’t care about other individuals because you feel entitled because of your bad day.

But this isn’t about how to stop the man, the mom, or the person from acting as they are in the moment. This is about you because we all have moments where our monster sheds light, and it is our responsibility not to take it out on others.

You don’t deserve a free meal because you have a bad day and shouldn’t aim to be that person. Although no one is perfect, there will be, or there have been, times when you unleash your monster on someone else. We sometimes get caught up in moments, and someone happens to be there. But now, in a new world filled with billions of people, we are learning not to do that. If you have the intent of getting a free meal, or you want to have a monster moment because you believe you are entitled to something or someone, at that point, you’re an asshole. Why not think about being so kind to the server that they are so thankful and give you a discount? Maybe you don’t get the whole meal off like the man, but instead, you get a discount and the satisfaction that you made someone else's life a little less shitty for a moment.

More often than we would like, we, the everyday people, struggle, and that's okay, but we have to become aware of that behavior and not excuse it because we see other people do so. That struggle sometimes drags us into monster forms, making us become versions of ourselves that we don’t and shouldn’t want to see. It's important to reveal our monsters, acknowledge our existence in ourselves, and not shove it down or turn a blind eye. If we shove it down and pretend we don’t sometimes act like shitty people, the more we excuse it. We allow our pride to turn into ignorance.

So yes, we are assholes; we are becoming people who wait on others to fail, people who complain too often, and, more notably, a lot of us are people who aren’t happy to be here. We sit and wallow, or we avoid and ignore. With a magnitude of people, opinions, and voices in front of us and at our fingertips, we aren’t becoming connected like Facebook tried telling us back in 2004.

To give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together

-Facebook, 2004

Twenty-some years later, and instead, many of us are incredibly disconnected. Projecting our frustrations onto the people around us, to strangers, hiding behind a screen, or to the ones closest to us. Disconnected from each other and ourselves, causing some monstrous behavior.

There has been this twisting of understatement that one acting as their true honest selves means they need to act selfishly; to not care about others is to act with pride. Not caring about others will lead you to success or comfort you in the form of a confidence blanket. Either way, it has allowed the monsters to escape, causing harm in our lives.

I know many of us later reflect on that moment (or moments), and from there, our minds deep dive into the emotional abyss of shame, feeling regret, dread, and anguish.

We don’t want to be monsters, I know we don’t walk around happily and go to bed with peace of mind when earlier in the day, we projected our negative emotions onto someone else. No, we stay up at night thinking about it and thinking about how we were an absolute ass. No one wants to be an asshole.

...pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the only antidote to shame

-Uncle Iroh

We can feel confident, climb the ladder of success, and enjoy ourselves without being assholes. We can have many achievements in our lives, and if there is one certain thing- it’s that it's not by being an asshole.

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