Helping people is rubbish.
It’s just a hassle. And most of the time, particularly if it’s a stranger, the recipient isn’t even grateful! And yet we continue to do it because the thought of not helping fills us with fear that Karma will catch up with us, and we’ll get hit by a bus. It’s all lies. Guilt riddled lies.
The other night I performed two acts of selfless kindness and resented both of them. Like you, I don’t help people purely to bask in their praise afterwards, but some recognition is expected. It’s just polite. But both my pointless attempts at assuaging the path of Karma resulted in nothing but bitterness.
The first occurred as I got on the train at Balham late on Wednesday evening. Believe it or not, I was completely sober and just wanted to get home as quickly as possible. As I manoeuvred my way through the carriage to an empty seat, I was swiftly barged out of the way by the previous inhabitant as she got off. Clearly shitfaced. I went to sit down and spotted an abandoned purse on the seat. Her purse. My immediate thought was ‘oh great, all you fuckers definitely saw the purse sitting there but now it’s my responsibility’. And as I picked it up I got helpful suggestions like;
‘Oh no. You could take it to the police station?’
Erm, how about you take it to the police station? I don’t have time to go to the police station. It’s 11pm. I just want to go home. Fuck off.
So now I was lumbered with this stupid purse and the responsibility of at least attempting to get it back to its owner. Which I resented anyway because she’d already barged me. Bitch. I hoped that Cheam station might still be open and I could just give it in there. It was quite late but the guy that usually works there is a bit ‘care in the community’ and probably wouldn’t have realised the time.
And it was!
I gave it to the man and passed on the problem. He told me he was going to cut up the credit cards anyway which I thought was weird. Did he not trust himself not to use them? But I didn’t dwell on it. I just wanted to go home.
I headed for the underpass and the 5 minute walk home when I heard a cry of ‘Can you help me?’ in what I thought was quite an unnecessarily sharp tone. I turned around and there was an old lady carrying a million plastic bags. In my head I was thinking, enough now. I’ve done my bit this evening. Let me go home. But then the fear of Karma kicked in and I dutifully obliged. As I took the bags off her I of course looked at what was in them. At first glance she didn’t look like a tramp, but she certainly smelled like one. The bags just contained old newspapers which confirmed this.
So there I was, walking through Cheam underpass at 12pm, completely sober and carrying a tramps plastic bags full of newspapers. I got to the other side of the underpass and the hobo said ‘Are you going to Cheam Village?’ to which I said I wasn’t. Because I wasn't. She tutted and looked at me like I was lying. Like I was going to hide and wait for her to struggle away with her bags of crap while I sat on the platform laughing at the thought. Of course she didn’t say thank you.
It was at that point when I decided to stop helping people. I returned a drunk girl’s purse and got rewarded with the judgement of a miserable old tramp.
Fuck Karma.
Now, would anyone like a cup of tea?
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