The Selfish Gene

This morning, when I was walking out of Starbucks with my blueberry muffin, a lady in front of me stopped and sided before the exit door, expecting me to open it for her. Hurriedly in automatic mode, I pushed the door open and she followed me out without a slight sign of gratitude.

After thought: I still would have acted generously if I had paused and examined exactly what was happening.

I feel sorry for her, for Hong Kong generally. Having lived in London, one virtue that really impressed me was how people of all classes (which they're so obsessed with) hold the door for others even someone is miles away approaching. Don't expect the same here. Instead you will find comical scenario where upon the first person opening the door, the others after will slip past it with silky moves comparable to those of Ronaldo, until, the door is closing to an impenetrable state. Then the cycle starts all over again.

It's funny. It's sad. Imagine this one particular moment of selfishness (or just utter laziness), multiplies by a thousand times, to become the total sum of all she does in her life. What would that be? A negative number, not even a zero.

I don't want to be self-righteous, feel superior and pass judgement on others. I want this to be my own exhortation. It's certainly not some big, philosophical teaching I discovered myself that I want to preach to others. (it's called Altruism, I learned.) No. I just don't want to waste my life DOING NOTHING. To me, that act of not opening the door for others and myself is DOING NOTHING. I may think it's doing me good, saving me some energy?...(I can't even think of anything else.) But in fact I have done NOTHING valuable to even my very ME.

"Hey you
Threw it all away
By holding everything in
...
a perfect combination of good etiquette and charm
You keep the chocolate biscuits wired to a car alarm
Oooooooooh
Selfish Jean"

Fran Healy, Travis