Civility: January 2, 2012

What is Civility?
Apparently it's a little known aspect of today's society where people treat each other like they want to be treated!!!
This term has been in the news and many blogs across our nation because of the lack of it.
Civility is treating people with manners and decorum even if they don't act that way. It's smiling when you feel like yelling at them, it's saying please and thank you to people who don't.
For the next 52 weeks, I plan are working on my own civility towards people (especially when I am driving my car) and keeping my mouth shut when I feel like "popping" off at someone who has stepped on my toes.
Will you join me in this new kind of New Year's Resolution?
Let me hear from you! Leave a comment, give me some ideas on how YOU practice Civility in your life, at home, work, school, out and about in the world.
Maybe if we all practice it, the entire world will join in???
   (You never know!)

January 2, 2012

Quote:  “Every action done in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are -present.”                --George Washington

According to  Meriam Webster Dictionary: Civility means:

Civilized conduct, especially courtesy, politeness;   A polite act or expression.

In it’s old meaning: training in the humanities

   In the real old days, young men and young ladies were taught civilities. That is, how to be polite in conversations, in actions and in writing to others, hence the old meaning: training in the humanities or how to be a good human being!

   Some how we’ve lost that training. We let ourselves spout off about things that anger us or just aggravate us, whether it’s something big like another driver almost causing us to have an accident, to trivial things like the grocery bagger cracking our eggs while packing them in the bags.  Some days I can deal with it, other days I’m thinking “What a moron! Come on, didn’t anyone ever teach you how to bag my eggs?”  So I hunch my shoulders down and get mad as I walk out of the store, pushing my cart brusquely ahead of me, determined to tell everyone when I get home about this incident. I mean, come on, those eggs are expensive….what was that idiot thinking?? 

    Ouch, it really sounds bad when I type this. In my own mind I deserve to be mad about it, but while writing this I’m thinking, readers are really going to think I’m off my rocker and a horrible person.

    I don’t think I can point to any one thing that caused me to learn to not be civil. It has seemed to grow more in the last few years. Age?  Hmm… I am middle aged so could be. And the more I do it, the worse it has seemed to grow in me. Ack!

   Some of it I blame on watching comedians poke fun at people and saying outlandish things about other people.  It made me laugh; now I do it, not always for laughs.

   Violent movies and tv? Possibly, you are what your watch as well as what you eat!  Junk you put into your brain also comes out of your brain. The more you slide into using curse words and bad grammar, the more you do it. I know I do that.

   Blame it on a bad day….well that works sometimes, on some days, but every day? What about people who are in the news…are they ALWAYS having a bad day?  It would seem like every person the camera person aimed at was having a bad day.  So that can’t be all of it.

   Maybe I’ve gotten too familiar with the whole world, I mean, some days  I don’t hold anything back, you get Lisa in all her grumpiness, bad hair day, lacking patience, you name it.

Yuck…

  So what to do about it?  Well, I’m starting to make a conscience effort to stop doing it. Stop making fun of people for laughs, stop getting mad about trivial things like eggs and the person stopping their cart in front of me to put her receipt in her purse.

  I’m going to work on it.  Whistle a happy tune, think good thoughts… pray for myself and others!

Lisa