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Hello people. I’m Joshua. James roped me into this thing, and was rather surprised I said yes!

Righto! On to my first post. I did not name it simply because I did not want it to be confused with a previous post since it is NOTHING alike (read on you will understand)

Now, I LOVE sitting in the train. I take a train everyday for 45 minutes to college….and I like it. It’s a great place to listen to music, read, study but more than anything, it’s a great place to observe. To observe the behaviours of people, to read them. The flustered mother, the overwhelmed student (ie me!) and of course the sickening, nauseating….LOVERS.

This is where the irony comes in. In partaking in an activity which I enjoy so much, I have seen what makes me sad beyond compare.

The sheer, utter SELFISHNESS of people (now you understand why this post has no name!)

Let me tell you a story.

I was getting on the KTM, it was a Sunday afternoon and I had just gotten back from Mid Valley and was heading to my Grandmother’s place.  There was this family. The usual, mother, father, 3 young kinds. Nothing special right. One big difference. Mother, father and eldest child…all blind. You could also see that the younger kids were also getting blind due to their thick glasses.

Now you would think out of all the people in the WORLD, this family would get just the slightest bit of sympathy right.  I am not asking you to like carry their bags or anything. Just give them way, let them in the train first. After all, the doors of the KTM are not automated.

What actually happened, will not surprise ANYONE, and frankly that is what scares me. People rush through not giving a fiddler’s fart (thank you Frank McCourt) abt them. Being BLIND to them (seriously no pun intended). I am totally detested by what I see.

This is not the first time it has happened….a young exec, taking a seat while a woman with a broken leg looks on…she could not get there in time…tough luck. An old lady sits in front of a group of young college students….they stare right through her.

Now enough rambling. My point. People now a days are completely selfish and self serving and unlike the previous post,  it is not a good thing. We now have no sense of common decency and we have become anesthetized from feeling any sort of guilt when we behave in such a way.

We as a country, as Asians, we pride ourselves in being a society orientated people. Yet it seems that our generation has failed miserably. And it is funny, we used to look down on Westerners, saying they do not respect their elders etc. When I went to LA and sat in their train…… It is very VERY different.  Young women, giving up their seats for infant carrying mothers, young guys, helping the elderly get to their seats. So let’s no longer think that we are better than them!

I cannot tell you where this selfishness comes from because I myself do not know how we let something this horrible happen. I do not think it is because of our parents since I honestly believe they have better manners. DO NOT blame the foreigners….we put too much blame on them already. These people doing these things are LOCAl.

We also forget, selfishness at it’s core has far reaching consequences. It was with selfish desire that colonialism began,  the white and black slave trade also due to selfishness, it was the selfishness of Hitler which lead to the Holocust,  selfishness lead to the assasinations of Keneddy, MLK, Gandhi and so many other great men.

On a more current note, I believe that selfishness is the root of our current economic crisis. Why? Because greed is selfishness. The core of greed is taking more than you need simply because it makes YOU happy. So buying a house you cannot afford, using credit cards like there is no tomorrow nor was there a yesterday. All this equals greed and greed is selfishness so TADA! You may not agree with me but I honestly feel that calling it greed is not enough….it truly is with SELFISH greed that we do these things.

So then what do we do? It’s human nature Joshua, Adam and Eve did it so that life. I refuse to accept that. I am a Christian and a big excuse that people give is….it says in the Bible, man is imperfect, what to do, God will understand la! Yes, do of course agree that none of us a perfect, and so none of us will be completely selfless because I believe that then we would be in heaven. But in the same breath I tell you, that is not an excuse. We should always strive for better and I believe it requires a conscious effort. We must at least try, take baby steps. I don’t wanna sound preachy but I just feel that since we have allowed ourselves to get to this point, we need to make an effort to dig ourselves out of it. Try thinking of others, don’t be too greedy, because I fear of what will happen to us if this gets out of hand. I think this economic crisis should be a wake up call.

Not all of you will agree and that is something a respect, I am not going to shove my beliefs down anyone throat….how…selfless of me hahaha!!

Cheers!

PS. On a personal note…..AMERICA HAS NO BRAINS!!! How could they vote out Alexis Grace!! Ya her version Joelene was not that great but were you people like DEAF or something the week before! Hello!!!  The girl can SING!!Ok for all of those who are like HUH??? I am an American Idol fan….I follow in religiously…..and Alexis Grace was a contestant on AI and she just got kicked out two days ago so ya…I am kindda pissed! And no I am not a psycho with multiple personality disorder or something (well not really!)