The thing about assholes and confidence

J. Cummins was right.

He once told me, after several glasses of whiskey and water--which, let's face it, make any man a sage, "I've found it's either too much confidence or too little confidence that give people their problems."

And while he slowly whirled that happy hour in his hand, as though he was welcoming the aroma of a fine wine, I realized that some of the best advice was probably handed down that way, with Tom Petty singing songs about winners and losers in the background.

As Bruce Springsteen cautioned, when it comes to winners and losers, "don't get caught on the wrong side of that line."

But confidence is tricky, isn't it? And we can be too confident in some situations and not enough in others; we're not bound to one or the other as a character trait. Sometimes overconfidence expresses itself as obnoxiousness. Sometimes a lack of confidence expresses itself as insecurity.

I thought about that as I briefly read some comments from Meg Ryan recently in Parade in which she said, and I'm paraphrasing, that her eyes were opened when she went through a divorce and people turned on her. She said she had no idea people could wish for her to fail.

And I thought, "Really, Meg?"

See, you can't give people too much credit because most of them are assholes. This is something I learned a long time ago and have never forgotten. And if you're an asshole, and I'm still nice to you, it simply means I've given up on you.

This may not immediately fit the profile for those of you who have labeled me an optimist. But the very reason I'm an optimist is because I know not everyone is an asshole. There are some normal, kind human beings out there. There are friends who really do want you to succeed. There are people who truly do love you unconditionally. There are incredible blessings from God. I believe these things because I've experienced them. But I also believe in a number of other things simply because I have faith.

But you can only have so much faith in assholes.

And if the Meg Ryan thing proves anything it's that your mom was right: When confronted with a bully--in this case an emotional one--just keep your head held high. Bullies never last, and they get theirs.

I just talked to Larry's great-grandma today about two bullies who used to live on her street. They treated her brother horribly. "And you know they grew up to both have failed marriages and very sick years before they died."

Like me, she's not the type of woman to wish anything horrible on anyone, but it's just one example of "what goes around, comes around."

Trust me, you don't want to be standing next to an asshole when it comes around.