Shared Neuroses

Among my many hang ups, neuroses and anxieties, I am frequently flummoxed by how what I do might impact other people. I don'r want to hold things up or be in the way. 

I wonder, it it just me? 

A couple of days ago, Ken Levine wrote a post on this blog called just that:  Is It Just Me?   

Here's some of what he wrote:  

"I’m on a flight.  The plane lands.  Everyone is trying to get off.  If I’m up front and have a bag in the overhead compartment, I can not get it out fast enough.  Why?  Because I am aware that this procedure is holding up 150 people, and that drives me CRAZY.  Who am I to inconvenience 150 people?"

 OK, maybe it's not just me. It's just me and Ken Levine.

But in the comments section of this post, others joined in.

"When I come to a traffic light, if I am at the front of the right lane, I try to get over to the next lane so that people behind me can turn right if I am not going to."

"I apologize any time I'm holding up the flow of whatever, and have been known to apologize at a checkout station even if there's no line behind me, which probably takes it to a new level of neurosis!"  

Just last week, I was at an ATM and I felt like my simple transaction was taking too long. It wasn't just impatience but a worry that I was holding up the ATM from someone else using it.

I checked behind me and no one was waiting to use the ATM.

It did not alleviate my worry.

OK, so maybe my obsession with not being in someone else's way borders on a neuroses but at least it's a shared neuroses.

It's a shame it's not shared by more people.

A lot of the sorry state of things in this country and in the world owes to a dearth of awareness of the welfare of others and a single minded fixation on selfish perspectives. 

There are too many people who consider concern for other people to be a detriment, compassion as weakness, courtesy a failing. 

Maybe if more people took time to factor in others in their actions and calculations, the rest of us wouldn't have to be some damned neurotic about it.  

Caesar Yoshua Ferrari's solo music unit "Neuroses".