In the essay "This Is Water" Wallace says "It's the automatic, unconscious way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the center of the world and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities". As a reader of this essay, I have to disagree with this statement because not everyone has the mentality that their needs rise above everyone else's and their needs should be the priority of the world even if they are having a frustrating or bad day.
Wallace gives a scenario about a negative, and selfish person's average day. I do not believe that it is hard-wired into everyone to be this way. I believe that it is a choice to think that your priorities are above everyone else's, you are more important than anyone else, and it doesn't matter what anyone else is going through. People that think and act in such a way are probably lonely and have never had to put the needs of others before their own.
Let us use a mom with three young children for example. She doesn’t have time to think about putting her needs before her children’s needs. All she is concerned about is making sure they are taken care of and happy. A women who tries to do as much as she can for them and often goes unappreciated, but to her it’s okay because she loves her children and wants them to have the best life possible.
Wallace states that “it’s hard, and will take mental effort” to not think everything is about you. I believe that it is not hard. I believe letting someone go ahead of you in the checkout line because they have way less groceries than you, or picking up the wet-floor sign that fell over is common sense, and should come natural to help because it is the right thing to do. If everyone had a negative attitude like the person in Wallace’s scenario, then the world would be a much more depressing place to live. Thankfully there are people where it comes natural to be selfless.
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