Consider being considerate

I don’t want to be the girl who calls the cops on her neighbors. I really don’t.

But resisting that temptation is sometimes very hard when “This is Indiana” has been loudly looped for 20 minutes and counting at 3:45 a.m. Tuesday.

Since I’ve moved out of my wildly expensive sorority and into a much more cost-effective sublet this semester, I’ve had to face a variety of issues that come with living in my first house. However, unreasonable utility bills aside, it was pretty uneventful. Until about a month ago.

At the first inkling of spring, my neighbors became different people.

While they once kept to themselves, only visible when bundled up and scurrying to class, they emerged at the first sign of warm weather as rampant party animals. Their houses spontaneously sprouted large speakers in seemingly every window, and they’ve subsequently been blasting music (terrible Top 40 music) directly into my room for the past three weeks or so.

Almost every night, large groups of people gather on porches and in the parking lot behind my house, yelling and breaking bottles.

I’ve become very hesitant to ride my bike anywhere near that parking lot because I don’t want to catch a flat from the broken glass and subsequently go flying off my bike into an ocean of sticky asphalt, jagged bottle shards and plastic cups.

I’d thought that, upon my exit from the greek system, I’d no longer have to deal with the inebriated, aggressive bros and blacked-out, screaming women who often characterize frat parties.

Yet, as I’ve found it, it’s not only frat parties that are full of rude people. They’re everywhere.

Consideration and politeness seem woefully absent from my daily life these past few years. Noisy neighbors aren’t an isolated incident.

In class, it’s the people who resolutely refuse to move toward the center of the row, even though the lecture hall is full and there are still people looking for a place to sit.
 
It’s professors who become offended and accusatory when students claim that test questions might have been confusingly worded, even though most students seemed to struggle with them or answer incorrectly.

It’s the kids on the bus who won’t give up their seats to mothers struggling to manage small children.

I’m a culprit as well as a victim of inconsideration and rudeness. I can think of many, many times that I’ve chosen to think only of myself rather than doing the right thing.

However, of late, I’ve found that inconveniencing myself a little to make someone else happy gives me a pleasant warm and fuzzy feeling that’s hard to get from selfish acts. There’s actually a wealth of scientific evidence showing that people who do more good live longer, stronger, healthier lives than those who don’t. 

Moreover, multiple studies have proven that doing good deeds makes you happier and actually fuels you to continue helping others. Doing good motivates doing more good in one big, benevolent cycle. 

So, hopefully, my neighbors might catch on to this and turn down their music next time it’s 4 p.m. Wednesday, and everyone else in their right minds is trying to live a normal, weekday life, undisturbed by the songs of Justin Beiber and Brice Fox.
 
As far as I’m concerned, not calling the cops on them for the past few weeks has been one big good deed in itself.

So I guess I should thank you, obnoxious neighbors, for making me more aware of the benefits of being a considerate person.

I’ll gladly take the longer, happier life I get in return for patiently dealing with your shenanigans.

­— kelfritz@indiana.edu