How slowly can you move when an old woman is in pain?
This is one of the few questions that doesn’t haunt my daily struggle to look like a normal human being. It doesn’t worry me at all. I’ve got it down to an art.
Moving slowly in times of need is a skill any sensible person begins cultivating in primary school:
“Who wants to be my special helper and carry the register today?” a teacher would ask.
Any child who would genuinely enjoy carrying books for someone older, larger and clearly better suited to the task than them is a narcissist at best, idiot at probable.
But everyone in the class throws up their hands because it represents a form of competition. To not engage at all would be to betray an utter lack of ambition.
The answer is simple; looking like you’re eager to help but curbing it in just enough to ensure that someone else gets there first.
Does this seem like a useful skill to you?
Next time an elderly woman falls and hurts herself it will.
Let’s face it, I genuinely don’t want to stoop to the floor and pick up someone’s dropped coins, fallen shopping or grandmother. If no one else was around I’d do it but seeing as it is actually a chore and not something I’d do “for fun” it seems reasonable enough that having someone else do it for me would be even better.
“But wait!” I imagine you might say (or at least would if you wanted to be a dear and cue my explanation.)
“But wait! When people see you not even trying to help they’ll realise that you lack goodwill to your fellow man!”
Well, this is clearly not so. Not only am I assured that the problem gets taken care of, but I instinctively move to help at just the right speed so as to become superfluous before exerting myself in the slightest. Often I’m thanked as if I’d actually helped.
It’s a good feeling and I encourage you to try it. Next time something falls, next time something breaks, next time a war breaks out or the government removes several important freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights…
Just show some visible surprise\remorse, convince people that you’re going to do something and then hope that someone else takes care of it and saves you the effort.
Nine times out of ten it works a treat. The final tenth time happens when everyone else is playing the same game and we all end up doing our best Chariots of Fire impression whilst someone lies squirming, possibly dying at our feet.