Title: Getting to know Rick
Purpose: Help Understand how I think
For better or worse, I have a unique way of thinking about things. Some people probably wonder why I seem to be friends with certain people and not others, or why I seem nice one day, but then seem frustrated for no reason soon afterwards. Here I will breakdown how I think of people into a variety of different categories in a way that my brain operates. Ready? Here I go:
1) First Impression: My first impression of everyone is that they are stupid. I’m sorry, but 4 out of 5 times It’s true. Most people are stupid these days, so if I end up being right 4 out of 5 times, that’s pretty good odds and I’ve decided to go with it. The movie Idiocracy is happening among us right now. Obviously the hope is that, if you’re reading this, you are probably friends with me in some way already, which means there’s a much higher probability that you’re in the 20%, so that’s good. My goal recently has been to find a way to mask the fact that I think you’re stupid for at least the first 2 weeks until you prove it, in which case I can be more open about it. I think I’ve made some major improvements here, but I’m not quite there yet.
2) Motivation: If I see that you’re not motivated, then I have no use for you at all. I truly believe that you are worthless and are merely in the way of any progress in this world. If you have to be told step by step, piece by piece how to do everything in life without the desire to learn on your own, please realize that it’s always easier for the rest of us to just do it for you, rendering you completely worthless.
On the other hand, if I see that you are dumb as a brick, but you are truly motivated to learn, I thrive on helping you. I will pretty much do whatever I need to do to help you out, even if it takes multiple repetitions of the same thing for hours on end, as I know it is an investment that will payoff exponentially in the future.
3) Independent Thought: Are you the type of person who lacks any independent thought? You know, the type who just does whatever they’ve always done or doing whatever step by step the “rule book” says without thinking logically about why you are doing it. I don’t think you’re worthless because you are actually willing to do something, but I often wonder how people like you seem to make it into positions of power in business. If you’re an engineer, for example, and all you do is follow all of the rules and procedures without any independent thought, what good are you? I can find someone for $20 an hour to do this. Why do I need you? Your whole job is to collect data and be THE decision maker. This is why you are higher paid!
Again, on the flip side of this, if you are willing to make a decision where you have shown a lot of work and evidence that you gathered in order to make that decision, I have a lot of respect for you, even if I don’t agree with your decision. You are the type of person where, if/when you realize that you made the wrong decision, you will quickly admit it, figure out what you assumed incorrectly, correct the decision and learn from it. This is growth and you will go a long way in life.
4) Parents: Parents are in a category of their own. My parents are pretty weird, but I love them anyway, because, well, they did give me birth!! And they would still do anything for me, no matter how stupid I am sometimes. Plus, even after the 37th time my mom gets the same computer virus and needs me to come over and fix it, there will never come that time where I will help my parents with something to the place where I could ever say “now we’re even.” Could you imagine that? It’s impossible. They gave me life, therefore I am in debt for life to them, no matter what.
5) Respect: If I find that you are better than me at something where I want to be better as well, I become Peter Patrelli and I just want to hang around you until I absorb your ability. You could be a complete idiot in every other way and we could disagree on the very basic things in life, but you still have something that I want, so I just want to hang around you at least until I can learn that ability from you. If I find that you are better than me at something, while also self-motivated and continuing to get better to the point where I can never catch up, I feel you are the peak of awesome!! You are the coolest in the world in my book!! I just want to hang around you forever.
These are some of the categories that describe how I think of people. Please understand, I’m not trying to tell you that I’m right or wrong. I’m just trying to explain how my brain works so you can better understand when you see me acting strange sometimes.
If you have read through all this and you are still just completely confused about the whole thing, don’t worry, you’re probably just in the 80%. So you should probably just put down your computer, go have another cookie, and forget you ever read this.
