The Hugging Trees....by ElleSkell
In the online dating world, there is a question always asked: "Do you think manners are important?" And I am often shocked and dismayed by people who don’t think manners are an important thing. I also instantly feel distaste by any such answers, and rendered absolutely disinterested.
Like so many other things in our society, we have made the basis for all decision-making our own special reactions to forces that happen to us all. In America right now, we as individuals and as a collective society view the details of our own lives more important than the greater good of all. We focus entirely on how distasteful certain circumstances are, not from a perspective of helping but from the perspective of “What can I get out of this?” or “What aren’t I getting out of this?” It seems that when we choose to operate from this space, we lose touch with the only thing that really matters at all—compassion and respect. In too many cases, it seems we compromise both to get ahead in life, no matter who we trample or kill in the process. Often the road to hell is paved with tiny bricks of choices to compromise basic tenets of respect and compassion. The erosion of compassion and the rise of apathy begins or ends with basic tenets—such as manners.
You already know what they are—we all do. Don’t hit people. Be nice. Share your toys. Don’t touch unless invited. Smile. Treat others the way you want to be treated.
Yet still, we spend every waking moment avoiding the details that force us to pay attention to something other than ourselves. We separate so thoroughly from our fellow man, avoiding anything that feels even a bit uncomfortable, that the reality and magnitude of pain in this world goes ignored in favor of reality television and Facebook Culture.
I was taking a hike the other day and I stumbled upon a packaged sandwich on the side of the area of the trail I was walking. The first thought in my head was “Oh, c’mon now. Litter bugs!” Then it occurred to me “No, someone left a sandwich here for someone.” Quickly on the heels of that was “Wow, I would never eat a sandwich off the side of the…” and then came the thought, the only thought that ever truly matters. I thought:
“Thank you, God, for giving me the kinds of daily blessings that keep me from being in a position of desperate hunger where I would see this sandwich and dive upon it as though I hadn’t had a decent meal in weeks. I am so grateful to always have something to eat, things that I need—even if I’m not getting everything I want right then and there.”
If I’ve learned nothing else, when you feel gratitude it is important to both state it and pass it on. I was grateful I have never felt the need to eat a sandwich found in the wild, and therefore the next day when I came into some unexpected cash I had a nice meal for myself, gave a really good tip to my awesome waiter, and then bought a pizza for a group of homeless residents because it was Friday night and I wanted to share my gratitude for food.
What’s your favorite food? What do you think it would feel like to not be able to eat it?
Coming to a place of compassion isn’t a very linear journey, and usually you have to understand your judgment before you can find your gratitude. One of my biggest pet peeves is loud chewers, slurpers. My god--Don’t get me started. Don’t take me to the movie theater if I’m even in slightly the way of a bad mood. The quickest path to a twitchy eye belonging to a twitchy date is taking me anywhere near tooth-suckers. Popcorn eaters are the worst. My god, and people who drag their kids into movies they can't understand just so they don't have to get a babysitter. Newsflash: you having kids changes your life, not everyone else's. I could probably diatribe about this forever. I won’t. All this is to say I used to wonder why this made me so angry.
It all comes down to respect, which comes around to presence, which comes around to compassion, which comes around to manners. Manners make the world go round, not because you have to follow them tooth and nail forever. Not because they make you more handsome on a date, or conform you to society. No. It’s because when you go into a space meant to be shared with your fellow humans, and you disregard rules about dogs, kids, cell phones, etiquette…not only are you blatantly saying “I don’t respect this establishment or anyone here” but you are also blatantly stating “My personal feelings of entitlement to comfort is more important than everyone else here.” When your cell phone goes off or you are talking during a movie, or you are bringing your baby into an R Rated film like nothing at all is the matter with that, what you are stating—loud and clear—is “I am more important than everyone. Watch me break all the rules just to feel powerful.”
And then we defend that “power” like petty little thugs.
You see it everywhere you go. Road rage, politicians assaulting reporters, cops shooting people for politics/fun, kids walking into their schools and shooting other kids. Sometimes it’s small and subtle things like being cut in front of in line, insulted on the basis of a demographic, judged by the color of your skin or how much money you don’t make. You are judged by people who steal your wages and your votes and tell you it’s up to you to change your future.
We create a situation where we have allowed ourselves to no longer care how our actions or inactions affect the world.
When we stop paying attention to how we and our actions affect the world, apathy creeps in and renders every cell useless where once the capacity for compassion dwelled. The very act of compromising the “little things” is what paves the way to compromising “big things.” Further, the very act of compromising anything to make yourself more comfortable at the expense of kindness and compassion for those around you is the same as yelling from the rooftops: “I matter more than you.”
You matter, I matter, we all matter. But not more than the lives of the human family that makes up this great World of Souls.
Believe me, People…I get the Ayn Rand side of things. “The question isn’t who is going to let me, but who is going to stop me.” There is truth in this—big truth. The only problem is that those who believe this philosophy—like our Speaker of the House Paul Ryan—this philosophy is most often absent compassion and caring for anyone but yourself and your pocketbook, and therefore any space you occupy is void of all meaning, and so are your words. What Paul Ryan and people like him have essentially done by believing the former without practicing the latter is having traded their souls to get ahead—usually by happily trampling the rights and lives of other people.
This is unacceptable.
This is happening in America—the land of the brave and the free. Too bad I don’t see any bravery or freedom going around—just old selfish frat boys making decisions that bring lots of money to their pockets and lots of pain to the people they promised to serve.
The breakdown of decent people in forward-thinking society doesn’t start with large things; rather, it starts with small things and the incremental steps toward apathy. It doesn’t always feel like a lot in the moment, but then one day you wake up to find yourself excusing racism and hatred, excusing your decision to vote for Donald Trump—or not to vote at all because your precious acceptable white male didn’t get elected—and continuing to support the immoral, unkind, and downright evil decisions being made by the elected leaders of our government. My how the mighty have fallen…
You wake up one day to realize you hate your job and your life, but instead of taking full responsibility for actions each of us choose to take daily, we point our fingers and blame anyone else.
Indeed, we do anything but face the devil within our own souls—we do anything but go to that scary place where we each as individuals can and should go where we truly face the wrongs we have done to the world, the people in it, and to ourselves.
Just like the “I-Didn’t-Do-It-Boy” episode of The Simpsons—in which everybody follows Bart’s live-and-let live-you-only-live-once-bullshit mentality and the whole town falls apart, catches fire even—we all have contributed to the erosion of the goodness in our culture.
You hear people say all the time out there in the world: “If only we could go back to simpler times, purer times.” People like our Vice President Mike Pence will say that people were better when he was growing up—purer perhaps, more orderly. But, really, things weren’t better. Goodness didn’t exist anymore forcefully back in the 1950s than it does now. The difference is the skeletons are coming out of the closet now, while then the only people who had a real voice were white men. The cat’s out of the bag, and has been for decades.
There is no putting it back. The only way out is through. The only way to get goodness back in our culture is to face these skeletons head on, as a collective group of people, and say “No more. Today we change.”
To even say that it is change we need is incorrect. What we need is a return to the basic principles of life—manners if you will. I’m not talking about the annoying, yet arguably important, habits your mother drives into your head—get your elbows off the table, clean your room, etc.
No, the manners I am talking about are things that we all, ostensibly anyway, learn in kindergarten. A guy named Robert Fulghum wrote a book entitled “All I Ever Need To Know About Life I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things.” Read it. For now, here are some of the highlights:
1. Share everything.
2. Play fair.
3. Don't hit people.
4. Put things back where you found them.
5. CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS.
6. Don't take things that aren't yours.
7. Say you're SORRY when you HURT somebody.
8. Wash your hands before you eat.
9. Flush.
10. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
11. Live a balanced life - learn some and drink some and draw some and paint some and sing and dance and play and work everyday some.
12. Take a nap every afternoon.
13. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
14. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Stryrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
15. Goldfish and hamster and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
16. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first world you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know About Life I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts about Common Things
Kids learn by example. What I mean by this is that kids want to know right from wrong, and they are hungry to be the best they can be, and they learn first and foremost from those who raise them.
Just this week I was walking downtown to go pick up a painting someone found for me. Standing at a red light with a family of six, I witnessed the family rushing forward into the street to beat traffic coming their way, totally disregarding the no walk sign. They made it. Their young son almost didn’t. I watched him understand crossing the road then and there was wrong, and he hesitated. But then the last minute, he ran into the road to catch up to his irresponsible family and the only two things stopping him from being hit was the woman standing behind him (me) and the driver of the car who both saw me and what was going on. That kid could have been dead, and because his parents didn’t think it was important enough to follow the rules of the world that are for everyone’s safety. Thankfully the child was safe and nothing horrible happened except for anxiety on the part of virtual strangers who took better care of a kid than did his own parents.
One has to wonder though…who would they have blamed had their kid died because of their own negligence? Would the driver have been sued, never to be the same? Would I have grappled with guilt of not being quick enough, wrapped up in a lawsuit defending my honor along with the driver's honor because parents created an unsafe situation for their own child? Food for thought, and it's been food I've been chewing all week.
It’s Valentine’s Day, a day that lives in infamy as "sadness" for singles and bliss for those who are "lucky" enough to have love.
The truth is, this day is an opportunity for us all to make a difference. Use your heart and mind to see pain and do something about it. We may have lost our way, but it’s never too late to get back on track.
Dance.
Love.
Laugh.
Ask how someone is and….listen to them.
Buy someone with less than you a hot cup of drip coffee when you stop for your $5 + latte.
Leave notes for your mailman, thanking them for their hard work.
Leave random notes for people with motivational quotes.
Go over to IMAlive's Blog (here) and choose random acts of kindness.
Not one of us is alone, because we all are in this together.
The best way to have a friend is to be one.
The best way to find love is to love.
Valentine’s Day pushes the philosophy of Love One and all the reasons why you don’t belong….Today, I challenge you all to use Valentine’s Day to push the philosophy of One Love, and all the reasons we all belong.
Like the song by Pink Floyd, “On the Turning Away”: “Is it all just a dream that there’ll be no more turning away?”
