Chapter 2

I had always worked hard, done the right thing but all around me I was surrounded by assholes doing the wrong thing and getting all the rewards. Shall I make a bold leap and for the first time act like an asshole. This was what was going through my mind more and more. So far I have managed to resist the urge to move towards the dark side and explore the world of the asshole, even though I was surrounded by many assholes who were doing way better than me in life. I had been having this inner battle with myself for several weeks now but I had resisted the urge to start down the asshole path.

Occasionally I would go out on the weekends, popular bars with live music, nightclubs, the place where young men and women would gather. All the young ladies seemed to flock to the bad boys, the next weekend the bad boys would be back but not with the young lady they left with the previous week. Sometimes one of these rejected ladies would storm over, call the bad boy an asshole, the bad boy would hardly notice, leave with a lady on their arm, but it was unusual for it to be the same one twice.

Then one day a small insignificant opportunity to perform a small asshole act unexpectedly presented itself to me. Should I step over the line and be an asshole for the first time in my life. I was standing in line at the counter of a cafe when the person in front of me dropped a $10 note on the ground as he was placing his change back in his wallet. The normal good me, would have picked it up and politely returned it to him. He looked to be a typical office worker reasonably dressed not in desperate need of that $10. In a wild first asshole act that I have ever performed, I picked up the $10 and put it in my pocket, and said nothing. For the next day I was being eaten up by the guilt of this small asshole act, it was tearing me apart. What could I do with this tainted money. Then as I was walking passed a Power Ball lottery outlet in a spur of the moment decision I spent the $10 on lottery tickets. The odds of winning are so unfavorable it's more like throwing the $10 away.

A week later I had forgotten about the ticket. There was an item in a news broadcast that somewhere there was a new undiscovered Billionaire. The largest Power Ball winner, in 2016 had won over 1.58 Billion, this as yet undiscovered winner was not quite in the same league. As a matter of interest, not expecting much, I fished out my ticket and got the shock of my life. My first, somewhat small asshole act had made me an instant Billionaire. It seems assholes do come out on top. This small act of an asshole and I had been rewarded way more then I had ever been for good honest work, or my efforts of being the kindest nicest person I could. Was there truth in this theory, nice people always finish last and assholes always come out on top. Being an Engineer trained in logic, and the well researched and tested physical laws of the universe, so like all good theories to be proved and accepted as a law of the physical world, Ferris's 1st Law of Assholes needed to be properly tested. I would look to performing acts of assholeness then observe the results.

Exactly how the 1st Law of Assholes applies would need to be determined by a rigorous test program. The first thing to establish would be if the results from an asshole act are in direct proportion to the severity of the asshole act. At this stage I was leaning towards the view that the good fortune I would have was independent of how big an asshole I had been. After all if the value of the result of an asshole act increased with the size of the asshole act, it could be big trouble. Such a small asshole act, had made me a Billionaire, a bigger asshole act could make too big a change and disrupt the whole world. Another possibility is the results of the asshole act could be inversely proportional to the level of the assholeness, that is, the bigger an asshole I become the smaller the benefit. Being a clever and sensible person, the just over one billion I now had was way more than I could ever need for the rest of my life.

I would now begin the next part of my life. I was about to start a new adventure. I would in the pursuit of knowledge and to understand the world around me better explore the world of being an asshole. I would start off with minor asshole acts, then evaluate the results. As this was going to be a complete change in how I had tried to live my life before, I would not attempt anything too adventurous to start with, just a few small things just to get me away from being the nice guy who always seemed to finish last. I would need to come up with something simple, something an asshole would do. I needed to find something that in the past I would have been kind, helpful in my approach and instead be a complete asshole. It was a Monday morning, the sun seemed to be brighter, the birds were all cheerfully singing, this was a great day to begin my new life as an asshole. I was not a complete asshole yet, but today I would make a start down this path. Would it make my life better ?. Would I stop finishing last ?. Let the great adventure and experiment begin. So I grabbed my keys and briefcase, and set off out the door.