This quote comes from one of my favorites scenes in the movie, The Matrix Reloaded, where Neo is fighting a ridiculous number of replicated Agent Smiths. Agent Smith figures out how to turn anybody he wants in the Matrix into a copy of himself so that he has more people to fight Neo. During a major fight scene where Neo learns of the multiple Agent Smiths, another agent walks onto the scene and says, “You.” To which Agent Smith responds, “Yes, me. Me, me, me.” And rams his hand into his the other agent’s chest turning him into a clone of himself. The newly cloned Agent Smith responds, “Me too.”
It’s a pretty cool, and geeky moment, as this happens and the two Agent Smith’s join the other multitude of Agent Smiths fighting Neo. I like this quote, not because of it just seeming cool, but I see it as something we all say sometimes. A quote we may not say aloud, but subconsciously think when we want something for ourselves. When we make the world all about us and don’t consider others. Can you think of a time where you may not have said this quote, but acted in this manner when you wanted something?
Check out this “Me, me, me…Me too” moment from a true tale called Jumping the queue…
Jumping the queue
Today, a true tale of heroism that takes place not in a war zone, nor a hospital, but in Victoria station in London in 2007, during a tube strike. Our hero , a transport journalist and self-described “big, stocky bloke with a shaven head” named Gareth Edwards, who first wrote about this experience on the community blog, metafilter.com, is standing with other commuters in a long, snaking line for a bus, when a smartly dressed businessman blatantly cuts in line behind him. (Behind him: this detail matters.)
The interloper proves immune to polite remonstration, whereupon Edwards is seized by a magnificent idea. He turns to the elderly woman standing behind the queue-jumper, and asks her if she’d like to go ahead of him. She accepts, so he asks the person behind her, and the next person, and the next until 60 or 70 people have moved ahead, Edwards and the seething queue-jumper shuffling further backwards all the time. The bus finally pulls up, and Edwards hears a shout from the front of the line. It’s the elderly woman, addressing him: “Young man! Do you want to go in front of me?”
Author: Oliver Burkeman in “The Guardian Weekend”, 28 August 2010
The Takeaway
Every time we cut a line, go around someone on the shoulder of a highway, or rudely move around someone who is moving slower, we’re saying, “Me, me, me…Me too.” We’re saying we’re more important than the people around us and that we have a right to “jump ahead.” Any why shouldn’t we? Aren’t we the most important person in the world??? To yourself, that may seem true, but sometimes you have to think bigger than yourself. You have to look at the bigger picture. Imagine a world where everyone let everyone else go first. Where we help the person behind us in life. Whether that be a person in line, a person in poverty, or a person in stress.
Put other people first. Be of service to others. Do all in your power to help someone else. Give of yourself like no other. I know that can be tough, but when we think of others above ourselves, we are loving our neighbor as ourselves, and isn’t this something we are instructed to do by someone much wiser than us?
So next time you think of cutting that line or going around someone in life, I challenge you to remove the, “Me, me, me…me too” mentality and instead ask, “How can I help?”
Here is the Me Too scene the The Matrix Reloaded:
Here is the complete scene with the pretty awesome fight…if you’re into that like me: