My Courtesy

It was 9:30pm, but it felt like 2:30am. I was dead tired. The day started at 9am with classes and then studying, and then gym. My arms felt like jello and my brain felt like a computer running on safe mode. The only thing on my mind was climbing the stairs to my apartment and taking a long shower. As I got into my building I saw a girl and her mom moving in. We all saw each other and made eye contact so we were forced to engage in typical small talk:

“Are you a student here,” I asked
“Yeah, second year. You?” girl answered.
“Me too, wait I’ve never seen you before.”
“I never go to class”
“You should wake her up and drag her to class in the mornings,” her mom interjected.
“Um sure…” the conversation was pretty much dead, I walked to my door but to be courteous I asked, “Do you guys need help?”
They looked at each other and said something that rocked my world, “yeah sure.”
“Alright see you la…”

Wait WTH just happened I thought to myself. Are they allowed accept my offer. It wasn’t even a real offer, more like a fake offer to impress them with my chivalry. But I couldn’t back out now, so for 30 minutes I moved boxes labeled “clothes” while her mom did the heavy lifting like “books” and coffee tables.

These 30 minutes got me thinking. This dilemma is completely society’s fault. We place so much value on individualism, privacy, and self help that we distance ourselves from one another. We only focus on what’s good for me, what will help me succeed, and what will this do for me. Me me me! So much me, that we forget about him, her, and them. We have lost all desire to help others unless there’s something to be gained. What happened to the good old days when neighbors baked cakes for each other or when people would pull over to help fix your broken car. Instead we have created a pseudo-courteous way of dealing with people. For example, when we walk by an acquaintance (someone you know, but not too well yet you still have to say hello), we usually say “hi, how are you?” We don’t give a crap how he or she is doing; in fact we get annoyed if he answered with anything longer than “good.” How are you is just a polite greeting, with nothing sincere behind it. And maybe in a few years our society will get rid of “how are you” altogether. Frankly I’m not sure how to stop this loss of consideration for one another, but I know what I’m going to do…I’m going to bake her a f’ing cake.