One Good Deed
So, I was scrolling through my photo album just to rewatch some saved videos of my nieces and nephews back in Malaysia. And then, I saw the photo of an orange. After some minutes of contemplation, I deleted it because I couldn’t figure out why I took a picture of it in the first place. 3 days later and here we are.
I was doing some light workouts when I remembered this specific event that happened last year in November at IKB (Irving Koerner Library), one of UBC’s library that I used to go to. It was a Saturday afternoon after a whole morning of making pizzas at work. I always had the same trouble of motivating myself to learn something new after my work because my mind tends to focus on the fact that I have done something productive during the first half of the day at work. Then, I figured that I’ll just join one of my housemates, Munirah on one of her study sessions. Mun (short for Munirah) is a very dedicated student and that is one of the defining features that made me admire her since the first year of university. She has morning shifts on weekends too and she almost always stays back at school to do some school work. I texted her and she told me that she was on the 4th floor of IKB. After lunch, I packed my bags to join her.
It was the midterm season and the whole 4th floor was packed with people. I found Mun sitting on a rather long table with an empty seat next to her. Our table was halfway facing a wall with 4 outlets that is useless and we both knew it. But also, there was an outlet on the floor near me so we were ultimately set for our study sessions for the next couple of hours.
Sometime later, a girl came to sit at an empty table next to us. Her table was covering the other half of the same wall with the 4 not-working outlets. I saw that she was plugging into the outlet on the wall and I was waiting for her to realize that it was not working. After a few minutes, I noticed that she started fiddling with her laptop and there was a clear look of confusion on her face. Instinctively, I just approached her and offered her my seat since I have 90% on both my laptop and iPad and this could last me for at least the next 3 hours. As per usual, we exchanged normal forms of gratitude speech and just went on with our lives. Mun went home hours earlier than me because she had to meet some classmates for a group project.
Some hours later, she was done with her study session but before she left, she gently pats my back and gave me an orange. With the sincerest eye contact, she wholeheartedly said that she appreciated that I gave up my seat voluntarily and hoped that I enjoyed this one extra orange she had.
That’s it. I was baffled for a few moments. I tried to brush it off like I normally do but I can’t help but feel uneasy about it. It was like an itch that needs some serious scratching. I decided to call it a day and packed my stuff to go home. All the way home, I decided to come clean with myself on why that sweet interaction bothered me.
First of all, her seat was next to me. It took me less than 2 minutes to transfer all my belongings to her table and overall, it was less than 5 minutes for me to regain focus and get started back again to do all my work. Secondly, we did our due diligence in expressing the gratitude of “thank you” and “your welcome” right after we exchanged tables and that was frankly more than enough. I am not entirely sure in other schools or workplace but in UBC, I was grown and accustomed to the fact that people are going to do their own thing and being a bit friendlier than usual to a stranger is a bit of a waste of time.
This was a very discomforting reflection because I realized that I was not disturbed by her actions but it was rather my thoughts on it. My initial thought was more centred on the fact of “wow, this was not necessary” and “why did she do this” when instead, I should’ve been friendlier and just make a new friend.
When I started school in UBC 2 years ago, I didn’t have much trouble making friends because I was naturally affable. However, outside of school interactions portray more of an individualistic lifestyle. And as an outsider, I conformed to it. I stopped smiling at strangers. At one point onwards, I keep my head down most of the time when I do grocery shopping. It didn’t faze me as much on how my personality changed because all this while, I equated it to growing up and becoming an adult.
Back at home, I was friendly to strangers because that’s how my mom and dad treat people at supermarkets or anywhere outside the home. Sometimes a simple salam, and sometimes some friendly nods with a smile. And on good days, they even make new friends after just a few minutes of talking. I stopped doing that and I was frankly pretty okay about it because technically it didn’t affect my social life in general. I conformed because I didn’t want to be perceived as weird or too forthcoming when in fact, I enjoy random, comfortable encounters with strangers.
This specific event, however, shows how one small deed made an impact on one’s conscience.
Her orange made me realize that I conformed to become someone that I don’t admire; someone who is self-centric. Her orange made me realized about a part of me that I’ve forgotten about. So, to this stranger UBC student, I hoped that Allah would cross our path once again so I could share this beautiful self-epiphany I had after receiving your orange.
