Please Stop Doing These 6 Selfish Things When You Are Sick

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Most people are willing to cut others a little bit of slack when they are sick. Everyone, after all, understands that being ill is awful. Even if all you have is a minor cold, people are still generally very sympathetic to the fact that you are unwell. As such, they are willing to excuse certain behavior that would otherwise irritate them. After all, everyone understands being a bit irritable when you feel like your head has been stuffed full of snot-saturated wool or your churning stomach is constantly trying to crawl out of your mouth. Some people, however, seem to believe that the nasty virus in their system means that the world revolves around them. Everyone else’s lives come to a halt because they have a cold. The world, however, keeps on spinning whether you are healthy or well, and your illness does not excuse you from being flagrantly selfish. Despite that fact, most people seem to simply expect people to deal with their selfishness and take serious offense when they are called out on it. So, be a conscientious invalid, and please stop doing these six selfish things when you are sick. The people around you will thank you for it.

Going to work, school or meetings.

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If you are sick, you need to remain quarantined as best you can. This means that you need to stay at home. Do not go to work so that you can cough, sneeze and breathe all over your colleagues. You may think that you look hard working and dedicated. You actually look like a walking contagion and quite selfish to boot. You have sick days for a reason. Use them when you are actually sick. When you are ill, you are not productive at work anyway. It is better to miss a day or two of work than to spend a week getting little to nothing done and infecting the rest of your office.

In the same way you would not go to work sick, do not send your children to school when they are sick. Children do not always realize they need to keep their distance when they are sick and are likely to hug their friends, share pencils or steal each other’s potato chips at lunch. All this does is get their friends sick. Let yourself or your kids recover before you go to work, school, the local PTA meeting or a school soccer game. Those around you will thank you.

Have friends over.

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Rescheduling things that you have been looking forward to is no fun. Sometimes, however, it needs to be done. One of those times is when you are sick. If you are ill, do not host things at your house. You will likely find that a number of your guests duck out so that they do not get sick themselves, and those that do attend will likely be hovering awkwardly as far from you as possible. They will likely also politely refuse every drink, snack or dessert that you offer them. They do not want the germs you have breathed all over the food.

If your child is sick, the same rule applies. Do not have their friends over to your house, and do not send them to a friend’s house. Your child may be heartbroken that they have to miss a birthday party because they are ill, but sometimes such things happen. It is deeply irresponsible to send your child to daycare, a party or similar gathering when you know they are sick. You are knowingly and willingly letting them infect others. Instead, have them stay home, rest and recover.

Using communal items.

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Perhaps the easiest way people spread common illnesses such as the flu, colds, bronchitis and strep throat is by touching or breathing on things that other people use. As such, do not use communal items when you are sick. If you are feeling under the weather at work, do not go into the break room and brew a new pot of coffee for everyone in the office to share. Your germs are all over both the beans you dumped into the pot and the coffee pot itself. Anyone else who needs a bit of a caffeine pick-me-up is going to be picking up your germs as well. Similarly, do not cook things that other people are going to eat when you are sick. You should not be going out anyway when you are sick, and you should certainly not be using your time in quarantine to make food for the dinner party later in the week. All you are doing is putting a biological time bomb in your fridge to spring on your friends later. It may be mildly inconvenient, but when you are sick, keep your germy mitts to yourself.

Extending germy hands and coughed breaths.

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One of the first things children are taught when they are sick is to cough or sneeze into their shoulder or elbow. That way, the germs are not on their hands. This is a perfectly sound idea in theory. It is completely negated, however, when you go to cough or sneeze into your shoulder and your coworker is sitting directly next to you. Your elbow does not have a vacuum machine embedded in it that will suck up all the germs you just spewed at someone else. Instead, your cough, sneeze or other germ-ridden breath just splattered all over another person.

On a similar note, if you blow or wipe your nose or handle a used tissue, go wash your hands. Tissues, toilet paper and other items that people usually use are porous. A large number of the germs you just expelled made it through your tissue onto your hands. This is doubly true if you reuse old tissues or blow your nose multiple times into one piece of toilet paper. All of your germs are all over your hands. Go wash them before you touch something someone else might use or worse, the person themselves.

Misuse antibiotics.

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If you are sick, visiting a doctor is never a bad idea. There is always the chance they can help you recover faster, and even if they cannot, they can at least confirm that you are simply dealing with a nasty case of the common cold rather than fighting the beginning stages of pneumonia.

When you visit the doctor, you are visiting someone you trust to be able to help you. As such, you need to listen to their advice. If the doctor tells you that there is nothing they can do to help you, there is no cure for the common cold, you need to accept that. Do not badger them for antibiotics or pills that will do you no good against a minor viral infection.

If you do have a bacterial infection, you need to use the antibiotics as they are prescribed. That means, you cannot take twice as much in order to try and kill the infection faster. You also cannot stop taking the antibiotics when you start feeling better. You need to finish the course of medication. Otherwise, you risk leaving behind a small group of bacteria that can multiple, make you sick again and, because they survive the first round of antibiotics, may now be immune to that medication.

Be demanding or whiny.

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Unless you are well and truly bedridden, you cannot expect your spouse, significant other or family to wait on you hand and foot. You have the flu, not some exotic disease. As such, there are certain things you need to take care of yourself as well as certain things you need to resign yourself to dealing with while you are ill. Your spouse, for example, is not going to want to cuddle with you when you are running a fever. It might make you feel better emotionally, but all that will do is get your partner sick as well. Despite what you may think, being sick does not mean that you automatically get your way.

Everyone understands that being sick is less than no fun. That does not mean, however, that everyone wants to listen to you complain about how you feel terrible for three days while your body battles a cold. If you suddenly feel terrible enough that you need your spouse to drive you to the doctor, do not hesitate to let them know. Otherwise, keep your pity party to yourself.

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A little bit of selfishness is understandable when you are sick. That does not excuse you, however, from becoming a walking contagion on a mission to infect as many people as possible. If you are ill, put yourself in a mini-quarantine until you are well. Not only will those around you thank you, your body will also appreciate the ability to focus solely on fighting off the disease. You will get better faster and find people far more sympathetic to your illness when you return. After all, this way you will have people to return to in the first place, rather than walking back into the office to find out the building is empty since everyone else was sensible enough to take off work after you oh so generously gave them all your disease.