My friend Amy from Va. Beach gave me an idea for a post. She wondered aloud tonight what had happened to common courtesy in our society and I was jolted into remembering twice in the past few weeks when I was asked myself the same.
Once my sister, brother-in-law and niece were enjoying the movie Ratatouille and the woman in front of us started talking on her cell phone. Talking on her phone in the middle of a movie! Her husband obviously recognized her gross faux pas and tried to get her to put the phone away, but she promptly swatted him with her open hand and yelled at him. Then, this past Saturday my niece and I were stretched out on the beach reading when four people crammed themselves in the narrow space between us and the next group of people AND, once they’d gotten their chairs where they wanted them, their cooler unpacked, and all helped apply tanning lotion to each other they turned on a boom box and cranked the volume up to the point at which I could no longer enjoy my book.
So, again I ask, what happened to common courtesy? I’m considering calling Nancy Grace or Greta Van Susteren and setting those bloodhounds loose on the trail of our missing decency, civility and proper etiquette. They have vanished and in their place we find isolation, unkindness, insensitivity, poor manners, and excuse-making.
Here’s a little test for you to try this week: Open the door for as many people as you can for the next seven days and record how many people say thank you. Then come back here and post your results.
I’m not going into all the possible reasons for the continued lack of common courtesy here (that post could be a book in the making), but will, instead, say we should stop tolerating it. If we let it happen we are complicit in it. Instead we can each stand up and change it.
Here are 10 Ways to Make Courtesy Common Once Again:
10. Say please and thank you
9. Open the door for the person in front of you and turn to see if you can hold it for anyone coming in after
8. When you go indoors, put your cell phone on vibrate and turn it off in the theatre, church, a quiet restaurant or any place where people meet and talk
7. When the lane in which you are driving is ending, let the driver in the right lane go in front of you
6. When you walk in front of someone in a grocery store or
book store say, “Excuse me.”
5. Return phone calls as soon as the opportunity arises
4. Send thank you notes or emails when you receive a gift
3. If you use call waiting, don’t! If you feel you must, when
you are one call and another comes say, “Will you excuse
me one moment,” switch to the incoming call and that caller
you will call them right back, then return to the original call
2. Live up to your promises. That goes for being on time.
1. When someone says hello, return the greeting with a smile
Fight anger, disrespect and disregard with love, grace, kindness, and thinking of others before yourself. Turn them around with common courtesy—and if that doesn't work we can sentence them to community service cleaning up after Paula Deen--voted the nicest woman in the U.S. She’d kill them with kindness or eat their big fat heads.
9 comments:
It's sad that you're even writing a post about this. I would expand your #5 to include emails since that's probably the most common form of communication these days. I would imagine that your readers are probably the type of people who do these without trying; here's to hoping anyway.
#7 When the lane in which you are driving is ending, let the driver in the right lane go in front of you AND If you are aware that the lane is going to end, merge long before the lane actually ends as opposed to passing all the cars that are properly in line and creating the back-up in the first place
HEY! Paula would never eat anyone's head.
I believe our isolation comes from all teh technology we're using in our homes...we've turned them into cocoon's and never leave. This keeps us from social interaction--the nexus of learning how to live within a society. Our future generations--the kids who today are addicted to video games--will only be worse. I've read Dale's book and the problem of "bowling alone" is going to deepen--and we're heading headlong into disintegration. We won't last another 150 years. Our southwestern territories will become a separate Hispanic country--California will split with the southern part joining the Hispanic country and the north clinging to some northwestern/moutain region. The south will, once again, be the South, and the Northern states, along with Mid-America will retain the title United States. Some Great Lake states may even opt to join Canada. It's just around the corner.
I'm going to use Paula Deen to scare my kids into doing their chores;-)
I'm going to use Paula Deen to scare my kids into doing their chores;-)
The walking of front of you without saying "excuse me" thing is really bad around here. Especially with younger people. I don't think parents are teaching their kids manners. What will we, as a society, become if they don't? Self-centered? We're that already. We need a Selfe-Centered society...
I was walking out the door of the mall 2 days ago, and a man and his 5-6 yr. old son were entering. The man held the door for me but his son scooted in thru it before me, and he turned around and said to his son "You must learn that you have to let ladies always go first" and I turned to him and thanked him for teaching his son this common courtesy. Maybe there's hope out there yet??
Hi Dale,
I'm one of Dale's many cousins sprinkled across this wonderful land. I know not only his hometown, but his parents, grandparents, most of his aunts and uncles, and a fair share of his many other cousins.
I also know he and I were raised with courtesy not being one of those things hoisted out for company. Courtesy to family, neighbors, anyone with whom we came into contact was (and is) the standard of conduct. It was a daily obligation, responsibility, and gross errors were treated similarly to using the worst offensive language - quite harshly actually.
I am proud of the people who raised me, ancestors who passed along a fine genetic pool I was blessed to swim in, and that I've been blessed with the opportunity to pass it all along to my children, nieces and nephews........standards set long before Dale or I were even a glimmer in the eyes of lovers.
GM
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