Some people don't have any consideration for others I thought as I made direct eye contact with 2 people in conversation blocking the hallway. No effort was made to accommodate me as I turned sideways and sucked in my gut to squeeze past them. I, on the other hand, have fallen flat on my face during a race as I moved to the side of the trail to allow a fellow competitor to pass.

A happy medium must exist!

As a person of extremes I have never been good at finding 'happy mediums'. I have found myself in the position of those two people in conversation I mentioned. A friend was confiding in me about something very serious and personal. I became so involved in their situation and in being there for that person, that all other concerns disappeared. That included pedestrians trying to pass. Allowing myself to notice the person trying to get by and then moving would've broken my concentration on my friend's issue. More importantly they may have felt I wasn't paying attention to the conversation.

Maybe these situations arise more often than I realize... Or maybe people are just assholes. There’s a good chance people are just really good at justifying their own selfish actions.

In the case of the trail race I laid out earlier, I over accommodated to a fault. That might sound like I am being 'holier than thou' but what I didn't share earlier is that I only THOUGHT I heard a fellow runner behind me... There was no one. I fell and stubbed my toe for no reason, but least there were no witnesses!

So if I want to address the issue of my lack of selfishness, what are my options? I can dial it back until I find the Goldilocks zone, right? Or I could go all the way to the asshole end of the scale and move back towards my original stance until I come across that good compromise point. Doing nothing is not an option because if I fall in the woods and no one is around to hear it... It still hurts.

I read an article about this topic and what I got from it is that a good starting point would be to just be more aware of what I am doing and why. Am I doing something because I truly want to help a person, or am I doing it because they want me to do it? This is a good distinction to make. I don't always do things because others want me to, I do like being not only helpful, but useful too.

What's the good in being a hammer if you don't hit shit?

I guess this coincides with my vanlifing journey as well. I am viewing this essentially as my retirement. I am moving it from 65-? to 32-?. I have good general laboring skills. It really would be a shame to not use these to help people I meet on my adventure. Also, if I don't use these skills during my retirement, I could unretire someday to find these skills have atrophied. So by helping others, I'll be helping myself. Stealthily Selfish!

I don't know if I got anywhere with this or if it is useful for anyone, but this is where we are. I feel like I might've just gone in circles, but ending up in the same place is alright sometimes, as long as you learn something in the process.

Experiences

Some People...