The Seven Habits of Highly Annoying People

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is a self-help book written by Stephen R. Covey, first published in 1989, which later on reached more than 25 million people. The American author presents a holistic, integrated, principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional problems. Seven habits you can adopt to being effective in attaining your goals.

Of course, I was enlightened about this fact only upon Stephen Covey’s demise last month.

Think positive. Be proactive. Get your priorities straight. Be a team player. Empathize. Stay committed. Stay focused. Never give up. Love all. Hate none. Self-help books, that’s what they all say.

If you’re looking for more ways to get inspired, to become filthy rich or to awaken the leader within you, then I’m afraid you’ve landed at the wrong place. This post is simply as the title suggests; nothing more, nothing less.

Habit 1: I wants to click.

The early nineties was a good time. Everyone owned a simple Kodak camera with roll film and single shutter speed.

Pure bliss.

People captured images of people. Not of dinosaur turd or beetles or bald trees, but of family and friends, just so that they could have their own nostalgic trips, a few years down the line. The best part was the limitation that these roll films offered. Thirty six snap shots, give or take a couple. So, every time you felt like you were being smothered by the over enthusiastic, there was always an escape route in hand.

“Hey, save it! There might be better spots ahead.”

With the arrival of digital cameras, all hell broke loose.

Now, we smile and pose next to every pillar, pool, lake, bush, Colonel Sanders and Ronald McDonald. No, we won’t even leave the fancy trash bins alone.

These guys who inhaled Canon and pissed out Nikon suddenly found the sunrise and the sunset invigorating. The salt water sea instilled a sense of tranquilness in them and the common sand became the grains of knowledge. An Uzi sub-machine gun in the hands of a maniac; they fire away at every rock, pebble or speck of dust.

Be forewarned. There is at least one DSLR in every group. My group? Well, I must have been the first odd prime number in my previous birth. I get everything in threes.

“Hey, wait up guys! There is a green grass-hopper on black cow dung here. If I bend down enough, I can get the blue sky in the background. The lighting is perfect to show these colours without reflecting or bleeding into one another. ”

*Click*

“Dude, eliminate those background distractions and show off the details in your subject. Let me use the macro mode and take a close up shot of its eyes to create sort of a personal and inviting feeling.” 

*Click*

“Oh my god, I think it’s about to fart now! Time to take out my tripod. I’ll just lower the shutter speed and the ISO and capture the blurred turbulence effect caused by its flatulence.”

*Click*

Habit 2: Flunking is the in thing

If you are or were an engineering student, one of the most common dialogues you might have heard within your peer group is, “What?! You haven’t flunked in a single subject throughout all eight semesters? What a nerd!”

Frankly speaking, this behavior fascinates me. Why do people think that failing in an exam is actually something to boast about? It is as if they’ve trained for 14 hours a day for four long years and won an Olympic gold medal.

“Dude, I have five backs overall. Beat that!”

“Bitch please, I’ve got eight here.”

Tell this to my mother and she’ll let you know exactly how much of an in thing flunking is. On the plus side, if you do consider the aphorism, “Failure is the stepping stone to success,” I think they are doing an excellent job in building a beautiful staircase.

Habit 3: Dimensional lover

Recently, when my room-mate invited me to a second round of “The amazing Spider man”, I politely declined and instead watched “Forrest Gump” again. The beauty of the old classics lies in their simplicity, crisp narration and incredible acting. Pre-Avatar time, the movies were criticized based on their plot, pace, dialogues, direction or screenplay.

Now, the judgment relies upon an additional dimension; the graphics. The 3d effect is definitely a bonus, no second thoughts on that. But, there are these select few Joans of irk who give more weightage to the visual effects over the story line. You strap a camera to a superhero’s crotch and redirect a movie with loads of sentimental bosh and cheesy lines, and yes sir, we will make it a blockbuster.

If 3d effect is all what you need, please stand behind a glass wall and I’ll hurl knives at you from the other side, all day long.

Habit 4: Pie is the word

I simply detest the word pie; especially when it is preceded by cutie or sweetie. Pie should be tied to a tree and stoned to death. The dictionary would be so much more lighter if we were to eliminate ‘cutie’, ’sweetie’, ‘pie’ and ‘honey’.  Moving on…

Habit 5: Master Chef Fan

“Kivi maathu” – I think that was the name of the show my mom used to watch on ETV Kannada. I’m not so sure. My mom or my sister used to watch these cooking shows and experiment in the kitchen, while I would be at the receiving end of some delicious dishes – be it the carrot halwas or the spicy curries or a new kind of vegetable dosa that would make you drool.

Now take Master Chef Australia. There is something about this competitive cooking game show that I can’t lay a finger on. Okay fine, I’ve no clue why these people who can’t break an egg go all gaga over the show. I’ve to torture myself by watching all the mouth-watering dishes that you cannot cook or eat. Then, I’ve to sit through the heated discussions on guessing who the winner will be.

All I could do while I watched an episode was speculate on how the judges could have been selected. I imagine they take interviews where they place an onion in front of the aspirants and ask them to comment on the performance of the candidate, say David. Melodrama is the name of the game.

“This David, right here, this is why you’ve earned our respect today. Picking an onion cannot get tougher than this. Do you realize that you’ve just raised the bar for everyone else in this room? With the perfect shape and size, and the right amount of pink, you could not have chosen a better vegetable. It is not too hard or too soft and when I cut out a piece from it, it almost makes me cry. This one, young man, this one’s going to grow into an exquisite cold salad or a hearty warm dish.”

Habit 6: Sadness is the new cool

I get attracted to people with a good sense of humour. I even develop a man crush on guys who can easily laugh at themselves. Humour lies in every aspect of our lives. However, some choose to simply ignore or skip it; the ones who look for the shadows in a brightly lit room.

You might just shrug and brush away your problems with the attitude, “It happens or shit happens.” You might brood for a while, shed a few tears, share it with your best pals, maybe write about it and move on.

Or, you could develop this aura of greatness around you, kick empathy on its hind side and start looking down upon others. I’ve been through worse things buddy. Yeah! I believe these are the ones who generally pick out problems out of thin air and perennially wish to swap their lives with their neighbours'.

That Mercedes might look all shiny and new from the outside. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the air conditioning system inside is in perfect order. If we’re comparing notes, I might as well speak about what some of us guys go through every summer.

Every time I go out during the daytime, I’ve this habit of rolling up my shirt sleeves when I’m unable to withstand the heat. So, while I trudge down the streets under the glaring sun, I roll up the left sleeve followed by the right. Kindly note - left first, always. The result? The left hand gets tanned more than the right. No, I don’t think you understand my trauma. Chicks might crush on Cameron White. Chicks might dig Joe Black. But, no one gives a half cent’s worth to a two striped Zebra.

And you thought your life was more depressing.

Habit 7: I am the Joker

Speaking of sense of humour…

Have you ever felt the sudden urge to delete your face book account? Was there any time when you lost your faith in humanity and thought, ‘Okay, I think I’ve seen enough. It is time to take the pills,’ and you reached out to your medicine cabinet?

Allow me to walk you through FB’s amusement park.

Boy: (Comments on a girl’s profile picture.) Nice Colgate smile. :)

Girl: Thanks, but I use Pepsodent. :P

Boy: Even I use Pepsodent. :P

Girl: We can be their brand ambassadors then. :D

Boy: Ha ha. Good one!

You get stuck in an emotional turmoil when these guys happen to be your former classmates; the ones you looked up to during your school days. Some accounts, you cannot block. So, you just have to sail through the storm.

And then, there is fun at work. Amidst all the deadlines to meet, these mails pop up in your inbox out of nowhere. Forwarding a few good mails to the entire team apparently improves your visibility (corporate jargon) and there is a colleague of mine who can now be spotted from the moon.

Last week, when I was busy developing code, preparing test cases and surfing through Wikipedia simultaneously, I received an email from the aforementioned colleague with the subject, ‘Computer quiz’. I opened the email and scrolled through it, and then my head just dropped and hit the desk.

 “Q: Why is a computer shameless?

A: Because it has hardware

.

.

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and software

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but no underwear.”

I mean, aren’t there enough of us bloggers already trying our best to get the stale air out of your lungs? Maybe I’m just jealous.

Anyway, those are the seven habits I hope you do not cultivate. For all you know, this might perhaps turn into a book and emerge as the next best seller and make me the new Indian author cum philosopher cum millionaire.

One can only hope.

Anticlimax:

After completing this lengthy post, I started searching for a suitable image to go with it, and it was then that I stumbled upon other blog posts with the similar title, written way back in 2010/2011. Sample posts - One, two and three.

Sigh. So much for originality. Talk about getting annoyed!