Sunday, November 16, 2008

Are You an Asshole?

"Have you been to Yellowstone?" the friendly stranger asks me, calmly sipping on his latte.

"I just went through there, in fact," I reply, setting down my Yellowstone newspaper and making sure to save the progress on my blog. "It's quite the sight. You're a fan, I assume?"

"I like it there, but my brother loves it. He lives there. I'm Randy, by the way."

Randy is a short man with a bald head and a big grin. He is eager to talk about his brother, whom he's recently discovered is dying of cancer.

"He's always been a free spirit. Loves fishing, hunting, exploring the land. So he became a resident at Yellowstone. He's an amazing artist. Never been one to hold down a steady job, but he's always found a way to survive. Now he goes around collecting antlers around the park. You know those lamps that look like antlers? They sell pretty well. He makes a pretty good living doing it."

Randy has always made a good living.

He is the good son. The responsible son. The reliable one. The kid who got offered a job at the age of thirteen and never looked back.

After all, a good work ethic leads to a good life. A prosperous life. A steady pay for a steady family. So Randy worked. And worked. And worked.

Before he knew it, he was running his own company. Together with his friend, an idea man with a mind for finance, Randy ran a prosperous chain of restaurants. He was the man in charge.

Randy liked being the man in charge. It suited him. Suited his personality. And it paid the bills. Fed the family.

Just one problem.

He never got to see the family he was feeding. Randy worked all the time. Late nights. Weekends. Lunch breaks.

When he wasn't working, he was tired. And cranky. His wife and children were obligations. More items on a list that needed to get done every day. After all, he was the boss. And a boss needs efficiency.

You see, Randy was an asshole.

Not my words. His.

"I took one of those aptitude tests, and when the results came in, the analysis was pretty clear. Down the line, my instincts, thoughts, and actions all pointed to one thing: I was an asshole."

He took the paper to his family and showed it to his son, who promptly nodded.

"Yeah, dad. That's pretty much you."

So what do you do when you find out you're an asshole?

"I changed," Randy says, taking another sip of his coffee.


Randy called his partner one day and told him 'I want out.' It wasn't easy and it had its financial setbacks, but Randy basically demoted himself. He now watches over seventeen Utah locations of an affordable national restaurant chain. He's still a boss, but he has significantly less responsibility.

Now he enjoys relaxing over a Starbucks coffee most days. He no longer works most nights. And weekends? Those are for enjoying his family.

"I've got four kids," he says, shaking his head. "Two of them are grown now, and I wasn't there for them like I should have been. But my ten-year-old twins? We have fun. My twenty-six-year old sees how I am with them, and every once in a while he'll look at me and go 'Hey, where was this guy when I was growing up?'

My wife looks at me now and tells me 'I don't even recognize you.'

But you know what? When you're fifty years old and you're dying of cancer, a life spent having fun in the woods... a life spent enjoying yourself and those around you? All of a sudden, my brother's decisions don't look so bad."

Words to live by.

And you should.

Because nothing beats the advice of a reformed asshole.

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