Everyone makes stupid choices. They say, “You can’t fix stupid!” Frank Stass charts the course of stupid thinking; beginning with a bad decision all the way through to becoming a candidate for the Darwin Awards. Understanding a dumb, stupid thinking pattern enables you to interrupt it and take a smarter course of action.
Nobody wakes up in the morning and says to him or herself, “Today, I think I'll do something
really stupid!” Yet every day, smart people do stupid things. No one needs to be taught how to be
stupid—it’s part of the human condition. It appears that we’re all born with the genetic coding
for stupidity. In some ways it’s like a disease (Cranio-Rectal Impaction, CRI) that lies dormant
in our brain, waiting for the right conditions or circumstances to manifest itself.
Fortunately, most of our stupidities are of the garden-variety, nonlethal type. There are “little
stupidities” and “big stupidities.” A little one might be something like walking into a sliding
glass door because you’re not paying attention to where you’re going. A bigger one might be
driving your car into the back of another one because you’re texting. At the extreme end of the
spectrum are baffling, life-destroying choices like those made by Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky affair, the Tiger Woods Cheating Scandal, Anthony Weiner's exploits on Twitter, or Arnold Schwarzenegger illegitmate son.
As we watch and read about these individuals, we can wonder to ourselves why anyone
would abandon their moral and personal standards to do something so stupid, especially things
that have a high risk of exposure or discovery. We might wonder what’s going on in someone’s
mind that would allow them to even consider such actions, let alone actually carry out some of
the controversial or even scandalous things we read or hear about every day. What could have
warped or distorted their thinking to the point that they would do something so … well, stupid?
This book is for anyone who has said, “I can’t believe I did something that stupid!”
Nobody wakes up in the morning and says to him or herself, “Today, I think I'll do something
really stupid!” Yet every day, smart people do stupid things. No one needs to be taught how to be
stupid—it’s part of the human condition. It appears that we’re all born with the genetic coding
for stupidity. In some ways it’s like a disease (Cranio-Rectal Impaction, CRI) that lies dormant
in our brain, waiting for the right conditions or circumstances to manifest itself.
Fortunately, most of our stupidities are of the garden-variety, nonlethal type. There are “little
stupidities” and “big stupidities.” A little one might be something like walking into a sliding
glass door because you’re not paying attention to where you’re going. A bigger one might be
driving your car into the back of another one because you’re texting. At the extreme end of the
spectrum are baffling, life-destroying choices like those made by Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky affair, the Tiger Woods Cheating Scandal, Anthony Weiner's exploits on Twitter, or Arnold Schwarzenegger illegitmate son.
As we watch and read about these individuals, we can wonder to ourselves why anyone
would abandon their moral and personal standards to do something so stupid, especially things
that have a high risk of exposure or discovery. We might wonder what’s going on in someone’s
mind that would allow them to even consider such actions, let alone actually carry out some of
the controversial or even scandalous things we read or hear about every day. What could have
warped or distorted their thinking to the point that they would do something so … well, stupid?
This book is for anyone who has said, “I can’t believe I did something that stupid!”
