It is not always about “me.”

And if you want to be an elected official or a public servant, it should never be about “me.”

It’s about others and how we interact and work together as a society.

That is clear to many but obviously not District 3 City Council hopeful Lei Ann Larson who has become laser focused on a perceived personal wrong at last Sunday’s Manteca Interact candidates forum.

She has done everything so far to push her grievance except take to Truth Social and ask the White House for an “independent” federal review whether there was some sort of conspiracy that deprived her of rights.

They are rights she apparently perceives are conveyed in the Constitution that she has the inalienable right to read from a pre-written statement as a forum she volunteered to participate in and attended on her own free will.

She has buried service organizations, Manteca Unified School District, and a host of others with War & Peace sized communications channeling someone more smitten with language one would expect from a lawyer issuing a disposition as opposed to simply making inquiries.

No one is saying it is not her right to do so.

But let’s be honest and stop tip toeing around what should be considered overkill to the Nth degree even if you are a hardcore Larson supporter.

Larson has taken what should have been a gopher mound grade issue — if that —and turned it into a Mt. Everest event.

In doing so, she not only took broad swipes at a group of teen volunteers, steered school administrators’ attention from trivia matters such as finding ways to help young people learn more effectively, but she has taken away from her own campaign.

Larson will now be known as the candidate that transformed an unfortunate e-scooter accident where she crashed without a helmet by using it to imply she was being picked on by having to follow rules given her injuries. She won’t be known as the candidate that has promised, if elected, to donate the monthly $1,900 stipend council members receive to help upgrade parks within District 3.

No one demanded a doctor’s note to back her assertions she suffered a concussion, facial injuries, a torn rotator cuff, and other wounds when she was making a case she should be allowed to read from a prepared statement.

But she has demanded documentation as to how the rule was implemented and not taking the forum organizers at their word.

If you were in attendance Sunday, you would have seen a Lei Ann Larson who had a pleasant disposition, didn’t struggle with words, and enthusiastically outlined her positions. There was never an inkling of hesitation.

She came across as someone who could handle the task they were doing — participating in a candidate’s debate — regardless of whether you agree with what she was saying.

Whatever perceived slight, perceived unfairness, or perceived discriminatory action that prompted her to flood inboxes with emails that delineated in great detail perceived wrongs that she markets as straight-face suggestions, it clearly didn’t affect her forum performance.

If her candidacy was impacted negatively, it was self-inflicted on what she did in the days following the closing statements.

One would be glossing over the 900-pound gorilla lurking out there if you don’t connect the pointed dots she made regarding how the forum was conceived and the people involved.

Or — to borrow the nutshell phrase that detractors have made a rallying cry for this municipal election cycle — it’s Gary’s fault.

That, of course, refers to Manteca Mayor Gary Singh.

Those that parrot that line try mightily to connect dots, no matter how contorted the pattern, to tie everything into Singh who has become the ultimate Rorschach test for those that firmly believe Manteca has descended into hell’s sub-basement.

Questioning the actions of elected officials is fair game.

Being so blinded by whatever it may be —and you can fill in the substitute word or words for it — that your assertions are free of any gravitational pull of reality or logic is playing a political version of the game of Twister and is more than disingenuous.

The contortion of the facts almost always leads to the weight of their scenarios collapsing on itself just like a person playing Twister that tries to bend their leg over their head to reach the “right” dot does.

And without fail, how they have rearranged or modified the facts doesn’t lead to the conclusion they want, they do the same thing again and again.

Larson is doing no one any favors — including herself — from her “I’ve Been Slighted Campaign.”

Perhaps if Larson took aim at her actual opponent incumbent Dave Breitenbucher instead of everyone else in the room, she might be able to secure the chance to donate a $1,900 month council stipend to go toward District 3 parks.