selfishness

Selfishness, in my opinion, is the root of most evil in this world.  We humans keep finding new ways to make it about us, without any care about how it affects other people. 

Recently I was on a job in Jacksonville.  I was staying in a hotel on the east side of town.  I noticed a couple of things that I found to be very selfish and, very annoying.

When trying to find a place to park, I find that some people who are taking up two places.  I am not talking about a bad parking job, where the person is too close to the line.  I am talking about people who intentionally take up two spaces.  ARUGHHHH!!!  Obviously they are better than, and more important than the rest of us.

And then the final straw.  It is 2pm and I am trying to check out of the hotel.  Since I am on a work trip, I have lots of stuff in my room.  Suitcase, backpack, box of food, two tool boxes and two tool bags.  I need a cart.

I need a cart, you know, one of those things that the hotel has so that people can roll their stuff to their cars.   [this is a stock picture that I found on line... since there were none to be found]

But guess what?  No carts to be found.  I enlist the help of hotel staff.  We look everywhere.  In the foyer where they are supposed to live.  In the parking lot... maybe someone left them in the parking lot.  Then on every floor of the hotel.

No carts to be found.  At 2pm in the afternoon.

Where are they?

People who are staying in the hotel have pulled the carts into their rooms.  They want to make sure that they have a cart when they need to take their stuff out.  Who cares if other people need a cart, they make sure that they have what they want for themselves.

And so I carry my stuff out of the room, down the hall to the elevator and out to the car.  Four trips.

I guess that the moral of this story is that we should all spend a little more time thinking about how our choices and our actions affect others.

It's not just the inconvenience that we sometimes deliver to others.  There is also a residual memory of an experience, fraught with pain and disbelief.

Selfishness has a half life that lives on in our memories.  Let's do all we can to keep fighting it off.

And yet, it is a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to do the good.