Will B. POLITE
One of the things I pride myself on is good manners. I am far from perfect but I do my best each day to follow proper etiquette of good manners. It seems to be missing more and more from everyday interactions. Olney and Young County in general are somewhat of an enigma when it comes to polite and friendly people. I find an abundance of politeness, good manners and friendly demeanors as I go through my daily routine around town and the county. I have resided in Olney for around six years now, moving from the fairly bigsize city of Fort Worth. Things are much different in the big city; things move faster, manners and politeness are generally disregarded but I do admit friendliness does still exist in Fort Worth. I can not testify to the manners and politeness of people in other big cities.
I have a personal philosophy that these three actions can change the course of the day almost instantaneously for anyone you may run across. What’s more, these things are free and cost us maybe an extra minute or so of our days, at most. A simple smile towards someone – friendliness – can change a person’s bad day to good with just a flash of your pearly whites. Opening a door or lending a helping hand – manners – could be just the thing that lets someone know that others are around to help and maybe there is hope for us as a species. Saying ‘excuse me’ when walking in front of someone or yielding the right of way for a driver – politeness – could turn someone’s bad day into a day of happiness or at the very least, maybe start a “change reaction” for others to be kind.
These actions are all free and can make such a huge impact on those around you, sometimes with instant results but most likely you may never see the results of your good manners, politeness or friendliness. I know this to be true because in my daily routine, these things have great impact. A friendly smile in my general direction turns my mediocre or sad day into a bright day and can even give me confidence to be more social. When I see someone hold the door open for someone it just restores my faith in humanity in general, I think maybe society isn’t going down the tubes quite so fast after all.
What gets under my skin so much even though I try to resist the negative thoughts is seeing people constantly pulling out in front of other drivers and more than likely they drive slowly, argh! not even in a hurry. Waiting for a car to pass really doesn’t take that long. To me this one act ruffles my feathers so much, I believe, because it makes me think those drivers have little regard for those around them and for the simple reason that I hold good manners in high regard. I suppose I stepped on my soap box just a bit with this one because it happened so much last week. I am sure most know what I mean: it feels good to vent sometimes as long as we don’t let it turn our day into one big negative gripe fest. This is Will B saying, a smile is free, pass them out liberally.