As you would treat others
Doyle and I went out to P.F.Changs for lunch today. I was in the mood for something different than our usual Murphy Street fare, having surprisingly tired of the amazingly tasty food around us.
When I offered P.F.Changs, Doyle agreed, and off we went.
As at the end of any lunch in an American Chinese or American faux-Chinese lunch, we received a handful of fortune cookies from which we expected to receive millions by playing the lottery numbers on the fortune, or sue the company for providing incorrect numbers. Or at least some short, clever witticism.
I grabbed the closest one to me once I realized they were there, and opened it. My fortune:
Now, I'm not exactly sure this is a fortune, so much as a comment on, well, perhaps my personality. Ignoring the sentence-ending "in bed" that seems to work with every current fortune cookie saying these days, I started thinking about this "fortune" I'd received.
It was suggesting that I:
- hate everyone around me struggling through the tortuous years of adolescence
- be annoyed at a person the first time he fails when trying something new
- expect perfection from all my friends
- ignore any physical pain they may be having and tell them to "suck it up"
- want them to always be productive because sitting around watching television or playing computer games is clearly a waste of life, when there are problems to solve and things to build and cures to find
I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to be treating my friends as I treat myself. If I did, I'm fairly certain I would have very, very, very few friends.
Doyle commented that they probably meant the usual platitude, "Treat others as you want to be treated."
I think I'll stick with my next fortune instead:
... in bed.