Heartby Lori Deschene

“We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves.” ~Pema Chodron

I didn’t care who was right or wrong. I just wanted her to move.

In all reality we both were right, but I felt substantially more right. I was assigned to seat 4A; her friend had been assigned to seat 4A; and he traded with her so he could have the aisle and she could have the window. Meaning she was in a seat she wasn’t assigned—a glorious, view-adjacent seat I was supposed to have. And they wanted me to sit between them.

Seven hours is an awfully long time to sit in a middle seat, between two people who may talk over you. When your head hurts. And you generally feel a little anxious flying. And you don’t yet know you can entertain yourself with free WiFi.

I wasn’t really sure what to say since it was clearly the airline’s error; so I just stood there, staring at the middle seat, hoping it would morph into a second Window seat—preferably in first class. (If I’m lost in Magical Thinking, it might as well go all the way.)

Eventually the girl moved to the middle. Luckily, the aisle seat across the way was open, so she then moved over there.

As I sat in the right spot, with even more room now that no one was next to me—fully aware her guy friend was shooting me daggers from two feet away—I suddenly felt disappointed in myself.

Was it really a big deal to just take the open seat? Had I never been around strangers who talked to each other in my presence? Would it have killed me to suck it up, be less selfish, and adapt? I decided to let it go and be as kind as possible for the rest of the flight, but still, this got me thinking about the courtesies we extend to people we meet every day.

I don’t like being selfish—not with people I know, and not with strangers. I may feel good in the moment when I look out for me, but I ultimately don’t like how I feel when I ignore someone else’s needs in favor of my own.

I like the world around me better when I treat people with consideration. I like myself better when I fight my instinct to fight. And I know it makes me a better person when I challenge my urge for instant gratification.

Sometimes it’s just plain hard to be selfless. Here’s why I think that is:

  • We get caught up in our own stresses and problems.
  • When we feel stressed or anxious we often have less patience for other people.
  • Our needs feel imperative, so it’s hard to get them off our minds long enough to consider what other people want.
  • It’s human nature to do what we think will make us happy; so we sometimes fixate on little goals—like getting home as fast as possible, even if it means cutting other people off in traffic—in that pursuit.
  • We’re a get-things-done-oriented society, and that can sometimes create a sense of urgency that overwhelms everything else.

It’s not necessarily that we’re jerks. Or we’re not compassionate. Or we only care about ourselves. It’s more that we get caught up in our wants and emotions, and sometimes they seem to trump everyone else’s.

Here are five things I’ve been doing to challenge my selfish instincts in the moments before I act:

I question how I’d address the situation if the person were a friend or family member.

It’s easier to disregard a stranger’s needs because you don’t have to see her later (unless, of course, you’re on a 7-hour cross-country flight). You don’t know if she’s a good person; or have any sense of her feelings. You can simply do what you want to do and walk away without really thinking about how you impacted her. When I imagine this person as someone I love, I instantly feel more compassionate.

I ask myself, “What would the person I want to be do?”

This has helped me quite a bit through the years. I wasn’t always what I’d consider to be a good person, but I knew what qualities that type of person would embody: kindness, selflessness, consideration—all those good things. When I’m tempted to do something selfish, I visualize that person I want to be, and question what she would do. Full disclosure: I don’t always do that thing. But I work at it, and it’s getting easier.

I consider what “future me” will think.

When I’m no longer rushed or harried. When I don’t feel impulsive, anxious, or angry. When I’m sitting at home, reflecting on the kind of person I was that day, thinking about ways I made myself proud. That person would wish I’d been patient with the customer service agent, instead of getting frustrated with him because of a computer error that wasn’t his fault.

I think about what’s going on with the person in front of me.

If you read Rachel Whalley’s post Letting Go of Stories About Other People, you know what I’m getting at here. So the guy in the aisle seat wasn’t very nice to me. (His exact words were, “Like hell we’re moving. These are our seats. Tough break.”) Maybe he had a rough day. Maybe he let her sit by the window because it was her first time flying. Maybe they’re both claustrophobic and that’s why they weren’t sitting next to each other. If I empathized with how they felt I’d be less likely to demand my own way.

I imagine I’m renewing someone’s faith in people.

There are a lot of people in this world who think no one cares about anyone but themselves. It saddens me to think they’ve hurt so deeply they’ve written everyone off, and maybe put up a guard. Not everyone feels this extreme; and odds are one simple kindness won’t change a person’s view of the world. But maybe it will make him question for a minute whether or not people are bad at their core. Maybe it will remind him though people make mistakes they also redeem themselves.

I believe people are good at heart. I believe people care.  Some people say that’s naïve. Maybe so. But I’m going to try my best to prove them wrong by caring and showing it—especially when it’s hard.

Photo by Stephen Poff.