selfishly inconsiderate [part 1]

Whatever happened to simple acts of kindness jut for the sake of helping people out?

For the past 3 days, I've experienced selfishness in many different forms.

selfishness: lack of consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal gain

I'm not saying that anyone is free/perfect from being selfish, I know I'm not, but there are certain situations where the selfish attitude is just being foolish

Why can't I just be helpful just because?

Why does everything have to have a reason?

So I was talking to my aunt about apartments in Berkeley (because she attended school there) because my friend is searching for apartments now.  

Her response: why are you looking for apartments in Berkeley?

me: oh, my friend is searching for an apartment, and I was just wondering if you could give me some locations so I can tell him to look around that area.

my aunt: doesn't he know the Berkeley area? Just do a search on Craig's list.

me:...

what I was really thinking:

how does that answer my question?

(I just wanted to give him a more direct location to search around!)

Okay, so maybe that wasn't the greatest examples of being selfish, but still, I found the tone of her voice unnecessary. I mean, common, I'm just looking for some direction.

The way I look at what she was telling me: Why are you concerned with this problem?  If it's not something you have to worry about then why bother? 

First: it's not a problem!

Secondly: It's called doing someone a favor,

or simply helping them out.

Third: that's not who I am.

Another incident, where my friend just wanted to know the process of something, and once again, because I didn't know, I tried asked around. Big mistake on my part. Because all I got was, "well, if it's that important, then shouldn't that person be trying to figure out what's going on by themselves?" 

SERIOUSLY?

No duh, they're trying to figure it out!

Because 

I thought 

when you need help, 

you go to someone who already went through something similar before

OR

someone who might know the answer and can possibly help.

But I guess not?

So basically, it's saying, if you don't know the answer, forget asking anyone for help.  Since when did it become "a do it yourself, or just don't bother asking for help at all" attitude?

can someone explain that to me?