Skip to main content

Common (?) Courtesy

Every weekday, I am at the church at 6 a.m. to drop youngest daughter off to seminary class.  This morning, three cars arrived at the same time, dropping off 2 girls and 1 boy.  I noticed the boy jump out of the car, hop up the stairs, and hold the door for both girls.  I smiled as I realized that this is a common occurrence.  The boys follow the men's examples and hold open the doors; the girls follow the women's examples and thank those who hold open the doors. 

When I got home from the church, I started reading the newspaper.  One of the editorials was lamenting the state of societal manners.  The author was upset by unsupervised children in stores, by the general sloppiness of dress, and by the coarseness of language.  She concluded her editorial by asking if she was the only one who had noticed this decline of decorum. 

In answer to that question, I will say that it seems that society is more divided now than in the past; more extreme.  I have witnessed the situations that the author cited, but I have also seen many examples of courteous children; neatly-attired individuals; and kind, calm conversations. 

Generally speaking, I'm an optimist.  Negativity screams, it is loud, noisy, and overbearing.  But the positive is there.  It just happens to be quiet, meek, and unassuming.  It sometimes requires looking beyond the distractions, but there is still much good in the world.  And as any observer of Disney movies knows, the good guys always win in the end.  :-)

Thankful thought of the day:  Thanks to the young man who held the door this morning, thanks to all those who hold doors, and thanks to those who graciously accept the courtesy.  Thanks also to my great husband, who makes me feel special every day by opening car doors, as well as building doors, for me.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ten Things of Thankful: Autumn Edition

It's autumn time, one of my favorite times of year.  I just couldn't leave this weekend as a one-post weekend.  

Ten Things of Thankful: Last Two Weeks

  Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park, as viewed from an overlook I apologize for not commenting on your blog posts this past week; John and I took a vacation to Yellowstone National Park, leaving behind our computers and, to a large extent, cell phone service. We escaped the outside world and just spent time in nature. Though we have friends near Yellowstone (who we love to visit) we made this trip just about us, so please forgive us if we were nearby and didn't stop by. The crowds were minimal (though we did mask up whenever we passed someone on the trails) and we spent our days hiking, taking photos, and watching geysers erupt. Today, we are back home and back to work, and, in the case of my computer, back to old shenanigans like not letting me import my photos. (I was able to add the above photo by using blogger on my phone, but that isn't my preferred method.) I want to write about Yellowstone and have photos I want to share, but will leave that for another

Monday Mentions: Equate Crutches

Have you ever needed crutches? I hadn't, until a week ago.  I'm pretty sure I strained a muscle while running a half-marathon.  (That sounds kind of cool, doesn't it? I'm not actually that cool; the last time I strained a muscle it was from carrying too many shopping bags at once.) In any case, I found myself in need of some crutches. I sent my husband to the store to get some. Photo: A pair of crutches leans against a wall  Not that crutches are all that complex, but because I hadn't used any before, I wondered if I could figure out how to adjust them to fit me properly. I shouldn't have worried. John came home from Walmart with their generic store brand of crutches, complete with instructions. First, I needed to take out a long bolt that went through the hand grip. Then I needed to find my height range, push down two metal pieces, and slide the crutches until the little metal pieces came up in the hole near my height range. (Having two people for this