On people, part two

Yesterday I wrote down my thoughts on how people treat other people.
It is my firm belief that one of the predominant traits of humanity is selfishness.
Not selfishness in the blatant sense, but in the sense that it takes effort on our parts to think about others.

I'll give you two examples of this. The first one is simple: Xenon headlights.

Some of you may have heard me talk about xenon headlights before. Usually i rant about them after i've had to drive alone on some back roads in the pouring rain whilst struggling with the defroster.

Xenon headlamps are a great idea: you increase the color temperature of your headlights, which brings the spectrum much closer to natural light, while actually being brighter, which increases visibility dramatically.
That is, visibility for you, the driver.
Not for me, the car on the other side of the road who is temporarily blinder by your might-as-well-be-hibeams headlights.

See: by installing expensive headlights, we make our lives better while making other people uncomfortable/miserable. Obviously we don't think about this when we get the nice headlamps. But as far as i'm concerned, that's exactly the point: Humans aren't programed to think of others by default.


I'm going to give a second example, which is much more abstract.
Bear with me.

The Lance Armstrong Foundation is a nonprofit organization started by none other than Lance Armstrong shortly after he was diagnosed with cancer.
Through it and its associated organizations, such as Livestrong, it raises money to help cancer patients and to raise awareness about the incurable disease.
A noble cause. Lance Armstrong has proven himself to be an influence in our society by being more than just an athlete.

But here's the problem I have: all those little yellow bracelets.
Why weren't they manufactured BEFORE Lance Armstrong had cancer?

This is nothing at all against Mr. Armstrong.
This is a gripe with our human mindset.
There are thousands of organizations out there like Livestrong that help people.
Except a vast majority of them were started by people who have been through the same troubles as the people the organizations help.
Here's my question to you:

Why can't we start organizations to help people without first experiencing what they feel?
Why did it take getting cancer to make Lance Armstrong start his foundation?
Why is it that the parents of children with obscure, incurable diseases are always the ones trying to find the answers?

Why couldn't Lance Armstrong have sat down one day, pre-cancer, and say, "i think i'm going to start a foundation to raise money for cancer research."?

This is what i'm talking about.

All you have to do is listen to teenage girls for a little while: they are completely uninterested in their friends until they say, "my dog died last night", and then it's all, "awww, my dog died 2 years ago and i cried for 3 weeks!!!"
People in general have a hard time with empathy.
We find it difficult to think about the every day struggles of anyone other than ourselves.

Paul wrote to the church in Rome:
"Let no debt be outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not covet,' and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." [Romans 13:8-10]

This is one thing i believe we can all do.
It's not that hard to love each other.