It’s Sometimes Not All About Me…

Ok, fine… usually it’s not about me.

It’s almost never about me, actually.

Yet as much as I know these things, I still live much of life thinking about number one.

Me.

I mean, doesn’t the world cease to exist when I’m not around?

I’m only half kidding here.

Some people call it narcissism. I just call it being a human being in the 21st century.

We are a very self focused generation.

Take an only *slightly* exaggerated example that we can all relate to:

I’m in a line up in a busy store. There are one hundred people ahead of me and only one employee that seems to be part Zootopian sloth, slowly dragging each item across the scanner. She stops to do a price check. She yawns and glances causally at the line. There’s no hint of her trying to pick up the pace whatsoever….

I think to myself. Oh My Word. Her Dad must own this place or she would be fired by now.

Tempers are flaring.

Babies are crying while their mothers are anxiously shoving fistfuls of goldfish into their mouths in a vain attempt to quiet them.

A woman angrily throws her one item to the side and storms out of the store.

I seriously consider following her lead with a bit more stomping for show.

A middle aged man starts muttering obscenities under his breath.

And then, hold up….. A senior cuts in front of me!!!

Which draws the line.

Who do you think you are?!? I immediately want to shout. But for once, thank goodness, God gave me the grace to hold my tongue, and in the second it takes me to draw in a deep breath, my eyes catch his.

I notice his grimaced expression.

A face full of suffering.

In his shaking hand he holds a prescription that I can only assume is related.

One second prior, I was thinking about me. My schedule, my busy day, my wasted time, me, me ME!!

I look at the line up of people. We’re all healthy and young. To our shame, not one of us noticed this poor man. We were all way too busy thinking about ourselves.

In that selfish moment I missed it. I missed the most basic human compassion because I wasn’t able to see past myself.

Another cashier appears. She begins to open a new line but her eyes aren’t on the angry customers, or the full carts. Her eyes are on this old gentleman who can barely walk himself to the line. He gives a surprised thank you as she slowly shuffles him to the front of it.

On my way out I thank her. I thank her for seeing him.

And I vow that next time I’ll see him too.