You can have a nice, pleasant life with a rule like "don't be a wanker". You'll have friends and probably a happy family. People will like you. People always like people who are non-threatening and don't make them feel insecure by being really good at something.
What you cannot do is compete in the highest level at any field while caring about things like "will people think I'm a wanker?". If you are succeeding spectacularly at anything, there are guaranteed to be thousands, if not millions, of people who think you're a wanker. Look at people at the top of anything and look at what people say about them.
I do not seem to hear a lot of bad press about Jessie Owens, Mohamed Ali, Usain Bolt, a lot of my fav. cricketers and lot of sports people. Narayan Murthy (founder of Infosys), Ratan Tata (chairman of Tata group), Abdul Kalam (late president of India), MLK Jr. are all examples of how you can be caring and successful.
Can you point out why succeeding spectacularly needs someone to be an asshole? Is it a US specific thing?
I don’t know all of them. Mohammad Ali was incredibly controversial in his time for converting to Islam and refusing to fight in Vietnam. A lot of people then would have called him an asshole.
Sure, after you’re dead people will look back and think you were great, but while you’re in the process in any competitive endeavor you necessarily are not going to be liked by the people you’re competing against, especially if you’re winning.
Take the late president of India. Did every single person in India vote for him? Did everyone agree with everything he proposed? He had no opposition? I know absolutely nothing about Indian politics, but I bet there were people who didn’t like him while he was in office.
“I better be nice and not do anything that anyone might object to” is not an attitude that leads to success.
And MLK, really???? You think nobody thought he was an asshole? You know they murdered him right? Do you think the people who killed him said he was a great guy?
If you think that having grace and form is going to stop people from calling you an asshole if you achieve any level of notoriety, you're in for some disappointment.
What you cannot do is compete in the highest level at any field while caring about things like "will people think I'm a wanker?". If you are succeeding spectacularly at anything, there are guaranteed to be thousands, if not millions, of people who think you're a wanker. Look at people at the top of anything and look at what people say about them.