Why do some of us stop caring about other people?
It was the middle of the afternoon, and a small little girl was seen dashing onto the road while wielding a long metal stick in front of her. As she was tilting her head and batting her eyelashes, cars were swerving left and right while trying to avoid her.
Many angry motorist yelled, “Get off the road!” as they whizzed by. But she paid no attention to them. She continued to gleefully skip forward towards the large crowds of tourists.
“OUCH! You just hit me!” yelled an angry boy. He sneered at the little girl who had just accidentally spun around and slapped her metal stick into his head. But she was too busy making silly faces and peace signs to even notice.
As she penetrated deeper into the crowd of tourists, her stick kept batting people to the left and to the right. And the crowd began to reel away from this winking ball of smiles and wavy long hair.
“Stop young lady! You are defiling that monument!” yelled the guard. But it was too late, she already skipped over the foot-high rope barrier and was striking multiple poses beside the war memorial. It was finally when her selfie stick was violently ripped from her hands, that she suddenly realized she was surrounded by a mob of annoyed and battered tourists. And she had also accidentally trampled upon a whole patch of white lilies that were dedicated to fallen war heroes.
If all we see in life is ourselves, we will end up becoming a lot like this little girl who was transfixed to her selfie stick. We will end up unknowingly jumping into people’s way, smacking people around, and just not valuing the lives of people around us. It’s only when we have the courage to lower our metaphorical selfie sticks and stop fixating on ourselves, that we finally gain the capacity to see and care for those around us.
