My Dialogue with the Dragon

When you do things, you do things for others.

I was sitting in the study room of my apartment complex when the manager stepped in.

"It's time to sleep," he said, gesturing to his watch. "Zhe room closes at ten—It's ten o' three."

He spoke with an accent—a Middle Eastern accent would be my guess—that turned all his the's to zhe's and elongated all the s's for a split second longer. My gaze lingered on the screen of my laptop. There was more I wanted to write.

Sensing my hesitation, the manager continued to speak. "I'll need you to get out or you will be locked in here, because zhe fob won't work after ten."

"Yeah," I said, finally standing up and shutting my laptop.

He held the door open as I packed up my belongings. While he waited, however, he thought to make small talk. "How's life?" He held up both hands and mimicked a paddling motion. "Still kayaking?"

I dragon boat, not kayak. But people mixed up paddling with rowing all the time, and the two motions were the opposite of each other. So I simply nodded.

But there is always a part of me that resisted stopping at simple small talk, even if just for a second. After zipping my backpack shut, I looked up at the ceiling, as if it held the answer to a question that had been burning in my mind for the past two months:

"I don't know what I'm doing all this for."

I expected the conversation to end there. But out of the corner of my eyes, I noticed the manager point to his head. "It's all up here."

I glanced at him, curious now.

"It's just what I think," he continued. "When you do things, you do things for others."

For a moment, I did not reply, only slung my backpack over my shoulder. Dragon boat was a team sport—of course, it lent itself to being team-driven and would attract individuals who would do things for the team.

But I did not possess these values. I had always preferred solo work and striking out on my own. Yet, somehow dragon boat had attracted me to it anyway.  Doing things for others? Perhaps subconsciously, I had decided to join dragon boat to understand what the heck that meant.

As I passed the manager to leave the study room, I decided to reply to him, "Yeah."