Sunday, September 20, 2009

Civility.......

I have no idea what is happening in the world...civility has gone out the window and very few people seem to mind. Am I being old-fashioned? Am I showing my age..uhmmm? Well, who cares... there is no age in good manners and there is nothing wrong with behaving with civility...I do have some theories, and I'm sure you knew that! The bigger the country, the worse it is. The bigger the influence of television and movies, the worse it is.

It has become a way of life to communicate via mobile phones, emails, social networks such a Facebook. That is all fantastic, it's the future, it's the world moving forward, I get it. Still, we need more human contact. Face to face exchanges have become so rare...why? we are human beings, we need eye contact, we need touch, we need to exchange ideas with spoken words.

What to do...those things seem so unfashionable at the moment. I think is the way we behave in big places. There is no time to get to know each other, no desire to exchange pleasantries, not need to be nice.....we need to get back to basic. Back to when we all knew each other's name, back to when we knew our neighbors....or maybe I am too naive.

Big cities don't lend themselves to warm relationships. All work and no play is a way of life. We commute and get home and need to solve every crisis that has presented itself during the time we were away at work. We need to complete tasks started before we can start new ones. Then we sit to see the 24 hours cable news, comedies, dramas and other so called entertainment. Sitting around the dinner table is a thing of the past, and if it happens...there is little to talk about. We are cranky, upset, tired and have no patience for anyone. No wonder we explode in uncivil behavior.

When we are outside the home, we behave in the same manner. We are impatient and rude and want to get our way quickly before we move on to another thing. How sad! We must remember that civilization comes from civility. How is civilization going to survive is civility is the first casualty of modernization?

We need to get back to simple things, paying attention to what is said to us before we react. We need to make sure our children know how to answer, how to ask for things and how to thank people. Please, the world is beautiful...stop and enjoy it. It will give you time to improve civility.

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