Note: The following is a rant provoked by some truly douchebag neighbors I’ve been living next to for the past year. Not that any of this will change seemingly ingrained behavior, but It is pleasantly therapeutic.
Ever stop to wonder how considerate you are to the people around you – strangers and acquaintances alike – and what kind of an opinion they have of you?
I think of consideration as a kindness scale. One end is total selflessness: making others happy is the goal and others’ well-being is the priority. Totally opposite is complete selfishness: being aware and taking advantage of situations, disregarding feelings and opinions others may have.
Essentially, doormats and douchebags. The rest of us are (hopefully) somewhere in between. I’m guessing that, much like driving ability, we see our own personalities as the perfect balance between d&d.
I’m sure we can all come up with people we’ve met or know who hover near the ends of the spectrum. Doormats are the really nice people; they’re the guys helping you move despite having to study for finals, the wanna-be comedian who doesn’t seem to mind fetching drinks, the generous philanthropist giving a 35% tip even when the waitress never refills your water.
And hopefully you just know of douchebags, whether they happen to be the neighbor who sneaks garbage into your garbage cans when theirs is overflowing, the street racer going 90 mph in rush hour traffic and sneaking a foot in front of other cars, or the customer arguing with a single clerk on duty even with a sizable line waiting behind him. Hopefully you’re not that guy.
I suppose on some level, I wish everybody was an inner doormat and all the douchebags roaming the streets really were just nice people having a bad (or depending on how you look at it, great) day. My naivety doesn’t account for the Prisoner’s Dilemma, though – it’s too easy to take advantage of unconditional niceness and the system soon degrades into competing self-interests. Actually, given how many scams are based off forms of social engineering, it’s quite amazing society continues to retain a level of civility. Civilization probably couldn’t survive off of complete self-interest.
A good reminder when that douchebag takes the last three bagels from the break room.
more detail on the douchebaggerosity!