Why Rudeness is Increasing

I got a note this morning from Serbia, authored by a friend I used to work with. As with many notes these days, it was short and to the point.

She wrote, “Everything in instant lately – we live instant lives – don’t like it.”

Her message made me think about why we seem hell-bent determined on becoming a 100-percent rush-rush, now-now society. We invent things to simplify life, integrate them into daily living, and suddenly everything becomes exponentially more complicated.

Then what do we do? We buy an “app” for that or some new toy to solve it.

This behavioral sabotage is a mushrooming trend which begs the question: Where will this quicksand of the mind eventually lead?

Earlier this week I needed to mail a package at the post office and waited to use a self-service machine. The guy in front of me was a stumblebum, clueless how to use it, and he took his sweet time proving it. Incompetence doesn’t bother me but disrespecting others does. Knowing two of us were waiting, the man insisted on multi-tasking, babbling nothing of importance into his cell phone while stymied by moron-simple instructions on the touch screen before him.

Inner me wanted to snatch his phone and dunk it inside the mail drop to teach him a lesson. Outer me refused. Instead two of us waited. Both irritated, neither said a word.

This act of overt rudeness — the man’s disregard for common courtesy to others — bothered me. Simple and selfish, his attention was split. By doing two things poorly at once, he disrespected the person on the other end of the phone call as well as the two of us patiently waiting.

“How hard is it,” I wondered, “to tell someone you’ll call them back?”

If the phone rings, must we answer? If someone texts, must we reply? Did Moses drop a tablet in the desert, chiseled with an eleventh commandment we are not aware of: Thou must reply immediately.

Over the past several years I have watched growing battalions of texters and ear-phone people become eager, dependent slaves to gizmos. People are trading manners for immediacy, patience for impatience, thought for reaction, being polite for self-absorption.

Addicted to knee-jerk behavior, too many live inside a bubble of denial — they do not know or care that creating a negative emotional experience on others is not an admirable trait.

In the past week I have seen a guy talking on the phone while flushing a commode in a public restroom, and a woman proudly sneak her BlackBerry into a world famous golf tournament. There she incessantly texted back and forth, like a tennis player volleying at the net, the device in her lap as if hidden.

People like this fool no one, except perhaps themselves. How special does it make you feel to hear a toilet flush while on a call? Or to be seated next to someone so royal the rules do not apply?

This growing malady — social rudeness — is not only annoying, it is extraordinarily selfish.

Why are more and more people intentionally creating negative feelings upon others? How do they justify doing so?  At what point do manners become less important than convenience?

People are becoming unable to concentrate long enough to read and are dumber for it. Attention spans are dwindling at work and home, command of the language is decreasing, and common social manners are being crushed like asphalt.

In the Denver newspaper this week, a story was written about a family grousing with the school district because their son thinks what the school wants him to learn is irrelevant. The gist of his argument is, “Why do I need to know this? I can Google it in two seconds.”

His parents agree. What a prince the man shall become: He will know nothing except how to look stuff up.

The next work generation will be populated and polluted by millions with similar habits and attitudes. How good of an employment investment is this?

I do not subscribe with those who shrug and say, “So what, who cares, what’s the big deal?”

It’s a very big deal. Little things add up to big things. And very few big things are as powerful as being a positive force in the universe.

To do that we must create as many positive emotional experiences in the lives of others — family, friends, and strangers — as possible. At the same time, we must be aware and make smart behavioral choices that minimize the negatives.

Life is not a lived in a bubble. It is played out on-stage with cast and crew.

Behaviors stem from choices. Regain awareness. Make smart, considerate choices. Seize, embrace, own, and control being positive in the impact your behaviors have on others. Urge others to be that way, too.