The river trail near our house was a nice path for walking, biking, that sort of thing. It ran along the river (thus the name, "river trail") with pleasant spots of trees and grass and water provisions spaced along down the middle of the urban sprawl. Inevitably there would be sections dutifully marked up with random and rude graffiti from folk who thought it was their duty, like wild dogs, to mark their territory. I wondered to myself, "Would it be okay with them if I wandered into their bedrooms and marked up their walls?" Of course not. So why was it okay for them to do it here?
Basic training in the Air Force was designed to be rigorous. It was aimed at breaking the wills of all who came through to teach them to work as a team rather than as individuals. It wasn't designed to be pleasant ... and it wasn't. Still, it was no small number of guys who I heard say, "I can't wait to get out of basic training so I can come back here and do this to others."
What is up with that? It's a common, every day occurrence. People who would potentially cause you harm for cutting them off in traffic will routinely cut you off in traffic. People who wouldn't tolerate you being rude to them are rude to you. Not only do we routinely fail to do the good to others that we would like them to do to us, but we also routinely do the unpleasant things to others that we would never tolerate being done to us.
What's up with that? Is it not possible for the common folk to consider, "Would I appreciate it if that was done to me?" before they do it to someone else? Are they really of the mind that they are the center of the universe and no one else matters as much as they do? Is it actually true that humans, by nature, are self-centered ... their own gods? And what about you? Is that the way you operate in your every day world, causing others discomfort that you'd never tolerate yourself? Brethren, these things ought not be.
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