Who is selfish and what is selfishness?

There are certain bad character traits that one easily accuses people of without really looking inward to see if one is affected by such. It is so easy to see others fault while our own Achilles continues to thrive. 

We even give excuses for these faults. One of the many baggage we carry about is selfishness. It is easy to accuse people richer of this or even some obvious case of not giving or sharing when one has excess of something. Yet I see selfishness in the little things we fail to notice. If you always believe you are right and you fight tooth and nail to remain right then you are selfish. Not trying to see from other peoples perspective is a big act of selfishness which is hard to deal with especially when one is very brilliant or highly opinionated. The big act of protecting self or ego, often make us go overboard in trying to make ourselves heard or seen without due consideration for others view. We feel good, get sense of worth in winning the battle of wits, wherever most times humanity does not benefit from such show of macho. Selfishness is when you open the door of your car without first looking out to see if there is anyone who could be hit by the door.
Selfishness is when you are alighting from Okada (motorbike) and the next thing is that your leg has connected someone's body in Jackie Chan or Jet Li fashion. You never bordered to check and see if it is safe to just throw your leg around. I hardly see ladies in skirt do this but I see some in trouser guilty as men.

A space management lesson for the selfish

Boarding a bus from Ketu to Obalende taught me a great lesson on selfishness. There was a very big lady seated on the same row I was seated. By virtue of her size, she occupied a large part of the seat and she made matter worse by spreading her legs and body as much as possible and the selfishness of the bus owners that made four people seat in such a tiny space was what she tried exaggerating above her own selfishness. All attempts to get her to adjust to make some room for others fell on deaf ears as she insisted she was not at fault. I was stuck because I never knew how to intervene without actually referring to her size which would eventually lead to discriminating her due her size. Thus selfishness comes in different format. When you beat someone to the floor and you keep beating the person without considering the person’s pride or dignity, you are nothing but inhuman and selfish. Life is not about winning all the time; it is about considering the dignity and pride of humanity. The ‘me, I and myself’, syndrome is a sickness that need to be cured. It is putting others into consideration and it is the only way to build relationships, friendship and networks.