Saturday, October 06, 2007

Have good manners been forgotten?

So yesterday I went to the mall because my husband is working with a car exhibition showing the new Honda models for 2008, and since I finished my classes early, I told him to pick me up so I could be with him at the mall. Once there, I left him doing his job, you know, giving information about the cars, talking to potential clients etc., and I proceeded to look around and see what was new at the stores, when I am inside one of the stores watching some blouses he gave me a call that he needed me over there right away, but I told him that I would be there, but as soon as I finished with my window shopping because that wing of the mall was too crowded and I didn’t wanted to walk back so soon, so told him that I was going to get some lunch and as soon I was finished I would go to him. Then he told me that since I was getting something for me to eat, to get him something too, to buy the food 5car5ry 5out and eat over there in the booth, to what I answered- O.K.-

Once there with the food I sat on a little white table that he had there to put the paperwork and the cards and started eating, from all the people that passed by me (I mean I am technically in the middle of the mall) only 6 persons wished me “bon apetit” and all of them were males between the ages of25-60. Only one of them was between the ages of 12-18. What do this means? We do not care about people anymore, we have forgotten about manners, we want everyone around us to be nice and polite to us but are we to others?
Something very similar happened to me also a few days ago, my husband was going to be a little late to pick me up so I started walking around the campus in order to waste some time when I decided to make a little experiment, I smiled to everyone that looked at me straight to my face while I was randomly walking and only three persons smiled back at me, out of like 30. Are we so afraid or self involved that we have forgotten what courtesy is? Change starts within ourselves, one person can make the difference, manners are free and so are smiles, try it. Maybe you will find that your day get better after you have gifted a few nice words to some strangers and a few sincere smiles.

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