Feeling Selfish.

When the world is going to hell in a handbasket (does anyone even know what that means?), we all tend to close in ranks a little and watch out for number one. And I find myself doing that more and more these days.

As I mentioned earlier this week, the President today will announce a 50 billion dollar package to assist homeowners who are at risk of foreclosure by lowering their monthly mortgage payments. The recipients will either have the principal on their loans lowered, or have their mortgage rate lowered. All I can think about is - where's MY federal aid??? Looking at this objectively, I guess I should be thankful that I don't need a bailout, but at the same time, my taxes are paying for this at a time when I could use help myself!

Along these same lines, I received an e-mail from a younger radio business colleague the other day who is apparently being laid off. This person had heard that I was getting freelance work at ABC, and wanted to know if I could give him (or her) a contact name so that he (or she) could try and line up some work as well. I wrote back and advised this person that he (or she) was just starting out in life, and that he (or she) should really make a fresh start and find something else to do because radio news is a dead end.

Well, this person didn't take the hint. He (or she) wrote back and said that yeah, eventually, he (or she) would find a new career, but for now he (or she) was just looking for work. He (or she) just wanted a contact. I finally had to be blunt. I wrote this person back and told him (or her) that if there's any extra freelance work to be gotten at ABC, I wanted it... and I sure as heck wasn't going to help him (or her) compete with me for it!

Selfish? Yeah, I guess I was. And a small part of me does feel a little bit bad about it. But a much larger part of me feels angry that someone would put me in the position of being a bad guy.

And finally, here's selfishness on a much sillier, more social level. And yes, it has to do with Facebook. I enjoy Facebook when I can go on there and gleefully carpetbomb the site with sarcastic responses to my friends' status updates, or start singalongs, or write one of those fun random lists. But Facebook goes from party to pain in the ass when I receive friend requests from people I just don't want to be friends with.

This is kind of tricky to write about, because some of these "friends" may end up seeing this. But I am finding it easier to turn down potential Facebook friends rather than to bear the thought of "unfriending" them instead down the road. And it's also a double-edged sword. I have accepted friend requests from people who I never would thought to ask to be my friends online... and they have turned out to be some of my best Facebook buddies.

But still - there are probably 30 people on my Facebook friends list who I have not communicated with since the day I added them... mostly people who are friends of friends, or people who I added because I didn't want to feel the shame of NOT adding them. Sooner or later, they are going to the "unfriend" zone, because frankly, I don't want them to have that much access to my personal life.

Facebook - at least for me - is supposed to be more fun than thoughtful.

Or maybe I'm just being selfish.