Awful People

Stephen Covey died this past week.  If you haven't heard of him you've surely heard of his '7 Habits' book.  I own a copy of this book, many people do because it's sold millions, but I'd never read it, not really.  Scanned it, never absorbed it.  But after he died I pulled it from my shelf and... well... scanned it again.  I'm just not a self-help kind of guy, it all seems too facile to really be applicable.  I did, however, realize that most of the terrible people in the world violate one or more of his 7 Habits.
   So I decided to write my own version.
  These are Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People re-written with the douchebag in mind.  With the career politician in mind.  With the overprivileged American aristocrat in mind.  With the aspirational CEO in mind.  You get the idea.  Assholes.

7 Habits of Terribly Awful People
1.  Be reactive
    Don't think anything through, just say the first thing that comes to mind.  Especially if it's demonstrably wrong, or prejudiced, or misogynist, or evil.  And whatever you do, don't ever, ever admit you were wrong.  You could never be wrong.  You're perfect.

2.  Have no goal other than to preserve your own position.
   Why work towards a greater goal than your own bank account?  Thinking in a larger context is just stupid.  Besides, thinking is hard, and cuts down on the time you could spend being reactionary.

3.  Avoid the difficult stuff.
   Do all the easy work first.  Even better, make other people do the easy work, and then hold them at fault when the hard stuff never happens.

4.  Think win/ lose.
   Every situation is zero-sum.  That's a fancy college term for 'for me to win you must lose.'  Compromise is for suckers.  It's also hard to spell, and you never want to do anything that's hard to spell.

5.  You don't need to understand anyone else.
  Compassion is for suckers.  It's hard to spell too, I mean, are there three s's or only two?  When you try to understand someone else's view then you're on the short track to violating Habit 2 and possibly Habit 1.  You don't ever want to re-evaluate your position, because to do so would be to admit that you were wrong.  And you're never wrong.  You're perfect.

6. Divide.
   Don't bring people together to accomplish a common goal, because if you do you'll never get the credit for anything that comes out of it.  You're the one in charge, so you have to keep Habit 4 in mind always.  When people work together they get a sense that they might not need you around.  That, in fact, your presence might be a hindrance to progress.  However true that might be, you can't ever allow others to realize it.

7.  Dull your tools.
  Don't take care of your body, your mind, your soul, or your relationships.  It's all about you, after all.  You can do everything alone.  You have to, otherwise someone else is going to get credit, and you can't have that.