Don’t Follow the Herd, Lead It

Usually, and at least I believe so, my thoughts are organized. I like to dish out things I personally believe are interesting in an orderly fashion that I hope most people can follow and feel just as enthusiastic about as I do. Other times, things just come to me at random. So, forgive me if this blog doesn’t exactly follow some sort of sequence that makes sense, but today’s issue just came to me.

The idea was sparked on my drive home from the 5^th Settlement in my friend’s car. For those living there, you’ll know that there’s a traffic light at the round-about on Street 90 (yes, we have traffic lights, imagine that). The light was red, and unlike most Egyptians, including the two cars in front of us, my friend decided to stop.

Now, for those living abroad, a little explanation is needed. Traffic lights in Egypt are a form of decoration the government likes to put up at random intersections (like lane lines and suggested speed limits), hoping that the good citizens might actually obey the law. A lot of them have cameras, but most don’t, and you are actually free to choose whether or not to stop when the light is red. Traffic is normally regulated by the traffic police, who stand at intersections and use random hand signals, or sometimes a whistle, to let us know when to stop and go. If there is no police officer, and there happens to be a traffic light, the law of the jungle applies. If the street’s empty, keep going. If you can bully your way through, then that’s pretty much acceptable as well.

So, it’s uncommon to find someone stopping at a red light when the street is empty, but my friend did. What was interesting was that all the cars behind us and next to us did the same, although the ones in front of us hadn’t. At that point, my friend turned to me and said with a smile, “If we hadn’t stopped now, no one else would have.”

And, that’s 80% true. You see, he had the choice to ignore the red light, but didn’t. That’s not to say that no one behind us would have had the decency to stop as well, on the contrary, I’m sure out of the ten cars around us, one might have done what he did. But not all ten; never all of them. A good majority would have done whatever the cars in front of them were doing, regardless if they believed it were right or wrong.

This brought to mind a time when my parents had invited the entire family over for dinner. Around thirty people sitting at two tables, with a glorious feast in front of us. Those who finished and got up were told by my mother to leave their plates, assuring them that she would clean up later. My brother and I didn’t listen to her, picked up our plates and the few around us, and took them to the kitchen. My brother went back to clean up some more plates, and I started washing the few dishes that had begun collecting in the sink. Within twenty minutes, my other ten cousins had pitched in, the table was clean, the left-overs were packed and in the fridge, and all the dishes (and pots and pans) were clean. My 60-year-old mother didn’t have to do a single thing.

Now, here’s what I really want to point out. I’ve constantly complained for the past ten years about how Egyptians practice a follow-the-herd mentality when it comes to anything in their lives. A lot of times, it’s for the good, but mostly it’s not. People who can’t afford cell phones buy them anyway and put a little extra stress on their families because everyone’s sporting one. We eat at the same restaurants our ‘herd’ eats at, go to the same cafes, watch the same movies, read the same books (we were on a serious Paolo Coelho and 7-Habits frenzy that was infuriating), etc. You can argue that it’s human nature, but not to the point where you have no opinion and your thoughts are almost 100% similar to any random person in the street.

The revolution did change a bit of that. Not as much as we expected, but enough to promise more in the near future. So, I say, why wait?

As Egyptians, we love to talk big, and stop there. But, we all know that actions speak louder than words, and we should take that to heart. From now on, if you really want to do something right, don’t wait for the people around you to start doing it. Go for it, without making a fuss, and show that you’re doing the right thing for one simple reason: because it’s right.

Remember when the entire nation went on a cleaning frenzy? That probably stopped because it was turning into a mass advertisement scheme, with people competing on which initiative was doing a better job. Don’t compete, just do. Don’t make a big deal out of it, and just get on with it. In your university for example, or your school, or at work, pick up anything someone just threw on the ground and dump it in the proper bin. Do it enough and I assure you that your friends, and their friends, will do the same. Save paper printed on only one side, and your co-workers will most likely do the same (actually, start your own little recycling campaign in your cubicle, and it’ll spread). Post news that will give us a little hope instead of all the bad jokes and depression that fills my news feed every day. Smile, even at the government bureaucrats, and believe me, it goes miles!

I’m not asking you to be unrealistic. I’m just saying it is actually realistic to accept that there’s just as much good going on as the bad, and it deserves acknowledgement. ‘Be the Change’ isn’t something that we should just put up as statuses and lazily blog about (pun intended), but believe me, actions do speak louder than words, and the sooner we apply that, the better things might be.

Lead the herd.