Self-Importance (Which Might Not Be a Real Word)

I sometimes find myself surrounded by people who want you to believe they're working on curing cancer for a living and yet I'm midst nobody who will ever be remembered for greatness vis-a-vis their work, so I must say, I agree with Matthew Yglesias HERE:

It is a universally acknowledged fact that a person in receipt of a jury duty summons must be struggle to find a way to wriggle out of...When I did jury duty in New York years ago I read The Brothers Karamazov while waiting around. When else do you get the chance these days to tackle the big honking 19th Century novels? Is everyone else's job really so amazing that they can't bear the thought of a few days off to listen to testimony and pronounce on a verdict? I don't buy it. I feel like as a society we've coordinated on a pointless anti-social norm that you're some kind of sucker if you're willing to just smile and do what the judge wants even though there are no really good self-interested reasons to want out. For salaried professionals, jury duty is a paid vacation. What's not to like?