Was It Something I said?

The crowd was closing in when I heard over the din, a ragged voice shouting, “Stop, I wanna get off!” The voice was mine and the ride I was on was life -fast and whirling, passing without even asking me if I take cream with my coffee. Twenty-first century living has become rude, mainly because manners take way too much time and energy, two items in painfully short supply. The irony of the whole phenomenon is that rudeness takes substantially more energy than a polite demeanor ever thought of using. Rushing to take the last chair, pressing the gas to swoop into a parking space that someone else was waiting for, voicing one’s opinion over a mouth full of food, all take an extra effort, a spurt of adrenalin that could otherwise be saved for laughing at the moon, or baking cookies with a five year old. It isn’t about being nice; it’s about bothering to acknowledge the worth of the human beings around us. And that does take time, more time than stomping through life with the proverbial chip on the shoulder, but it is time well spent because of the dignity it brings to everyday. Every day.