Villan or Hero

You never hang out with people that hate you, why would you do that? People that hate you are wrong, right? We love to surround ourselves with people that tell us how good we are, not how bad we are. No one ever wakes up and says, “I’m a bad guy”. When you take your kids to the movies your son doesn’t walk away saying that he wants to grow up and be the villan; of course not. No, we all want to be the rescuing hero – the one who everyone applauds. So we constantly surround ourselves with those who affirm us as good people. Unfortunately we rarely take a candid introspective look at ourselves and ask, “Am I a bad guy?”  Maybe you wake up saying, “I’m not a bad guy.” Well, I beg to differ if you do any of the following.

You’re a bad guy…

1. If you’re giving people a reason to sue you. If you’ve signed a contract and haven’t kept to it, changed the terms, or haven’t paid. If you’re not answering your phone, you’ve changed your address and you’re in process of changing your name too, then you’re a yellow bellied bad guy. You’re the villain in that movie.
2. If you are suing 2 or more people right now for the wrong reasons. Be the bigger man, cut your losses. Improve your judgements of people and business deals. Where you can try solve issues out of court.
3. If you give poor customer service. You own a restaurant and charge $4 for a rock-shandy, you serve crappy coffee, your workplace is dirty and your receptionist is rude and addicted to Facebook. Jack up your act!
4. If you have said in the past week, “It’s not personal it’s just business” as you take someone for a ride. People are business and business is people. If you take advantage of someone’s helplessness or ignorance and sell something with a 200% mark up, you are plain greedy.
5. If you are trying to get a large cut of every deal that you come across. Understand your value. For a change, try helping people with no expectation of getting anything back.
6. If you are offering loans at more than 15% per month. Even if it's legal, high interest rates are crippling us, especially when inflation figures are reported as much lower.
7. If you litter. Disease spreading vermin leave rubbish everywhere so unless you are a rodent just stop leaving trash lying around. While you are at it, stop your friend next to you. Have a little pride and keep things beautiful.
8. If you’re not a security guard yet you demand money for “watching cars.” Although you’ll probably never read this, get a real job you lazy beggar. Stop hassling productive citizens.

If you get offended reading the list, perhaps you should have a look at what you can change. I can hear another self-righteous idealist chiding me saying, “Why aren’t you talking about anything good? Why aren’t you talking about all the good guys?” Well, I actually am. If you’re not doing these bad things, you’re probably a good guy. I like you well done!