I was watching Vir Das: Fool Volume on Netflix the other night, hilarious, and in the middle of all the jokes, he drops this line:
“There are only two kinds of people in the world, assholes, and people who deal with assholes.”
I laughed, then paused, then rewound, then just sat there staring at the screen like... that’s uncomfortably accurate.
If I’m being honest, I’ve been the first kind. I used to be the asshole. Not because I wanted to hurt anyone or be toxic or whatever, but I thought being blunt, quick, and always “right” meant I was being smart. I thought I was being efficient, but looking back, I was just being difficult, impatient, sharp in all the wrong ways.
But life has a way of softening your edges. It throws people in your path who don’t react, don’t fight, don’t get rattled. People who don’t play the game. They just smile, say what needs to be said, and get on with it, while you’re still fuming in the corner. That’s when I realized the real power isn’t in being loud or fast. It’s in knowing how to deal with people who are, you know...
Over time, I changed. I started learning how to handle the first kind instead of being one. I became more patient, more grounded, less reactive, and honestly, life got a bit easier, less drama, better relationships, fewer mental spirals at night.
But, and this is important, every once in a while, someone shows up who’s not just your regular everyday asshole, they’re a moronic asshole, and when that happens, I feel the old me creeping in. The version of me that doesn’t want to breathe and count to ten. The one who wants to go straight to war. So yeah, I slip, I lose it, I go back to square one.
And maybe that’s just how it is. Maybe we don’t permanently become the second kind of person. Maybe we just try to spend more time there than we used to, because at the end of the day, growth isn’t linear. You don’t magically become a better person and stay there forever. You evolve, you relapse, you reflect, and you try again.
So yeah, maybe Vir Das is right, but maybe it’s not black and white. Maybe most of us are just trying to spend less time being the asshole and more time figuring out how to deal with them, even when one of them is us.