The other day, a Chinese lady I work with made an interesting comment. She basically said that Americans are selfish. I don’t know if she said those exact words, but she said that Americans think about themselves more than people in China do. She didn’t say it in a demeaning way at all… it was more of a matter of fact comment about how our cultures differ.

I started to understand what she meant. Many people look out for themselves first before seeing if anyone else is in need. Then many of the people who do “help” others do it because they know it will give them a tax break or some other reward. The more I think about it, the more I see how selfish we are in all of the little things we do every day. I’m starting to think it’s becoming more and more normal to be selfish these days. What can we do to change this?

The other day at work I talked to a guy from New York City. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t originally from NYC though, because he didn’t have the typical New Yorker accent. After telling him that our call center is in Michigan, he told me how he thought that people in Michigan were nice—particularly that the women are not too judgemental compared to other areas in the country. He described how women in NYC will judge the guys they date by the car they drive and what kind of a house or apartment they live in, as if that’s the most important part of the relationship. He said they’ll actually drill you with questions about those things to find out how much money you make and how you spend it.

This kind of made me feel good about where I live, but at the same time it made me sick to hear firsthand how shallow some people are. I mean, I’ve known there are people like that, especially in the big cities like New York and LA. But the way he described it made me feel like it’s kind of a plague, and that I’m lucky to live somewhere where it’s not so bad! I’m sure that not all women in New York are like that, just like there are some people in Michigan that can be a little snobbish. But even before I talked to this guy I’ve thought about how money-oriented our society seems to be getting. Or maybe it’s just me…