Selfishness. We’ve all been there. We’ve all taken the last cookie in the dining hall. We’ve all printed on the last piece of paper and not replaced it.
People throw around the phrase “don’t steal my spot.” They do it because they want to sit in their same place. They like having control over their environment, and they like having consistency.
However, people sometimes take this to an extreme. Many times, the things we want end up taking over our lives. Whether we want them or we have them, we just can’t get enough. Again, it’s about ownership and being able to draw a line in the sand to designate where "yours" ends and "mine" begins.
This starts, apparently, when we’re three years old. Kids draw that line in crayon with their share approaching 90 percent and the other kid with 10 percent.
Sharing does not lessen your soul. By sharing, you are able to inversely increase what you have by increasing what we all have.
It’s a tough balancing act weighed in society. People want as much as they can without offending or being selfish. Our society tells us to want the whole pie and to leave personal connections in the gutter. Power to us in the West means domination and monopolistic attitudes. We should all want to be part of the 1 percent, right?
Despite the draw of the 1 percent, the sharing part of our lives reaches its peak in college.
We share with our roommates. We share in the dining hall. We share clothing, and we share each other’s company. The amount of personal space and personal possession comes down to very little.
We don’t subscribe to the fenced-in personal space divisions that we may have had at home. Most of us don’t have personal space, much less our own cars.
The collegiate breakdown of individual possessions does well for our morality. It’s not a breakdown of individuality but a breakdown from possessions that all too often possess us.
It’s healthy and smart to share with other people, because the gifts — both material and spiritual — can be magnified within our social contexts.
Sharing yourself and your things can be an overwhelmingly positive experience: just think about what it means that we attend publicly funded university.
By going to ASU, we take advantage of the Arizona tax base. People here pay income taxes and help subsidize the tuition we pay. Pooling these resources on such a macro scale illustrates that the concept of sharing can be implemented on a larger scale.
College trail mix tastes better when sharing it with other people.
Reach the columnist at peter.northfelt@asu.edu or follow him at @peternorthfelt
