Now, I’d like to think I’m an understanding and forgiving kind of guy, and God knows I’m far from being perfect, but come on, everyone! Some people just make you want to move to a deserted island far off the coast of Tahiti and forget the lunacy that goes on with the human race.

Here’s one thing that gets me. Recently, a Major League baseball player, who was suspended for assaulting his 20-year-old girlfriend, leaving visible signs of injury upon her neck and her arms, returned to play again for his team. I read several blogs about this issue. One man said that he’s glad the player is back because he’s going to help the team win. A woman posted that since the player was suspended by the league without pay, he served his sentence and should be allowed to play again.

This player was not suspended for stealing a car or for cheating on his taxes. He beat up a woman. To the man who said he was happy to have the player back, I would ask, “What if the girl he beat up was your daughter?” To the woman who said the player had paid his debt to society, I’d ask, “What if the woman he cut with his fingernails and choked with his hands was you?”

Now to be fair, the charges were dropped by the victim, but MLB did its own investigation and found enough evidence to suspend the player for most of the 2019 season and required that he receive domestic violence counseling. Perhaps I’m overreacting about this issue and maybe there are self-respecting men and women who can cheer for this man every time he gets a hit, but count me out. Shame on the five men who own the team. What a message they have sent to their wives and daughters.

I saw a guy walking in the park the other day and he was wearing a T-shirt that said, “I Hate People.” Now I’m not that far disgusted with the human race, but there are days when I just need to remove myself from the thought that if I was lying dead in the street somewhere, how many drivers would bounce their tires right off my corpse and move along on their merry way?

We live in a “what’s in it for me” world. Selfish people concern themselves with how the problems of others is going to negatively affect them. Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky in his novel “The Brothers Karamazov” wrote, “The world says: “You have needs - satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more. This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. …”

Yup, go out and “satisfy your needs” and the heck with the needs of others. If you do the research on who does volunteer work or community service, it’s often not people who have free time on their hands; it’s those who squeeze their service in between their work and their family responsibilities to help satisfy the needs of others. But we always hear the excuse from those who do nothing to help the people in their communities.

“Well, I would, but I just don’t have the time.”

Here’s what else gets me. It’s the kid who fails in school and blames it on his teachers. It’s the girl who won’t try out for the softball team because she doesn’t like the coach and the man who won’t work for anyone because he doesn’t like to be told what to do. It’s the guy who weaves in and out of traffic on the highway to get ahead of everybody because his life is more important than ours and he has to hurry to get where he’s going. It’s the woman at Walmart who rolls her shopping cart with 40 items into the express checkout lane because she’s too self-absorbed or too self-important to pay attention to the sign that says 10 items or fewer.

It’s the driver who takes up two spaces by parking over the line in a crowded lot. It’s people who pull next to a gas pump and literally park their car there while they mosey around the convenience store for 15 minutes buying cupcakes and soda while other drivers at the pump have to wait to get gas or back up to drive out.

It’s the couple in a restaurant who are drinking their after-meal third cup of coffee for 45 minutes while they smile at 10 people standing by the door waiting to be seated when an open table becomes available.

How about the neighbor who pulls the cord of his lawn mower at 6:30 on Saturday morning or the kid whose mother told him to sneak into the Dollar Store, rip off 30 empty bags by the register and run back out the door?

Just look around and you have to wonder if we have forgotten that we’re supposed to share the world with everyone else.

American author David Mitchell wrote, “In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.”

If Mitchell is right, I’ll never get my chance to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Somebody will jump in front of me and be standing in my way.

Rich Strack can be reached at richiesadie11@gmail.com.