It is still rude, however. But when someone is rude to you it isn’t that they are judging you. Their rudeness proves they are judging those they have battled before. Those who hurt them, fooled them, laughed at them, were rude to them. Those who denigrated, belittled, betrayed, and otherwise disappointed and hurt the person’s hopes, desires and expectations. Rudeness is their way of battling back.
It feels good to be rude sometimes. It’s satisfying, like you got someone back. But of course, the problem is you usually don’t get the right person back and, even if you do, you don’t end up being satisfied in the long run.
Better to stop the chain of rudeness and be nice, ok? That’s easy enough, isn’t it?
By the way – I know they don’t look like very realistic tongues. But that race of skinny headed people have giant lozenge-like tongues. I checked.
I am not one to talk about the ‘old days’ as if they were better. I am not one to talk about how we did more with less or how good it used to be for kids and how hard it is now for them. For the most part I think that is just old people wishing for better days.
The truth is it’s always been hard for kids. There is always something unique about the culture and society they live in that bring out certain problems they face that earlier generations didn’t have to in the same way.
Today one of the things kids face in the US and many other countries is a very diverse culture. I think that is a good thing. But one of the negatives attached to it is having muddy guidelines about what is proper or improper behavior. It isn’t a uniform definition anymore. Even that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just that it makes the job of the parent harder. Not only does the child not see the example being set consistently among other adults when he or she is away from their immediate family, but the parent’s themselves might have been brought up very differently from one another and have different ideas about what is okay or not okay in personal behavior.
That doesn’t mean a parent gives up on teaching. It means they add a new element of discussion and illustration. When you as a parent see what you deem bad manners you explain to your child why you consider it bad. You explain why it is hurtful or inconsiderate. You give them reasons that help them understand that while others may not do it they way the do, they know it is a good and decent way to behave. And whatever you do, do not off load the responsibility to a school, a village, a society or worst of all, the child. It is NOT the responsibility of the child to learn it on his or her own. It is your responsibility as the parent.
I found this quote on twitter and it hit me as a fantastically concise and perceptive statement about the truth of rudeness.
When I think about examples of rudeness it seems there are two main reasons for it. One, the person really doesn’t know they are being rude. We are not talking about that.
Two, the person does know and feels empowered by it. They like the expansion of their field of control. They stretch out their fork to get food off another person’s plate. They stretch out their voice into a phone and a waiting room or theatre. They stretch out their disrespect by never acknowledging people who serve and care for them.
The list can go on. But what they all have in common is the rude person attempting to be superior. subjugating others to their physical, emotional or psychological space. People who are confident and strong don’t have that need, they know who they are and can treat others with respect and good manners. The weak person is the one constantly trying to get others to see the strength they know they are lacking, usually in a passive aggressive way.
You can’t avoid rudeness in life. But you can contribute to it’s diminishing by not enabling it. Don’t be a weanie when it rears it’s ugly head. Say something. That is unless of course you live in Oklahoma where they just passed a law allowing people to wear guns in a holster on their hip like back in the wild west. In that case, be careful!
Seriously though and more importantly, if you are a parent raise your kids to not be rude by teaching and giving them experiences that bring out their true strength and confidence.
This idea is important for parents, grandparents or anyone working or living with people substantially younger than they are.
As is obvious to people who have read the Napkin Story I tried to impart all sorts of substantial ideas to my daughters over the years. But those ideas aren’t like food. Put in front of them and eaten immediately. They are more like a seed that is planted. It needs to germinate and grow at its own pace, depending on the soil, weather and other plants it encounters, not what the parent plant encountered. Just as in evolution there is variation and mutation over the generations so to with ideas and thoughts.
The key for the older person is to show respect for the thoughts and ideas the younger people have. Even if they sound similar to your ideas it is essential for the growth of the next generation that you accept that their ideas are their own, new and fresh, for the world they live in. If you do that you empower them to continue thinking and exploring and you give them the right example for how they should respond to the next generation when they are your age, many years from now.
“Those who say our thoughts are not our own because they resemble the ancients, may as well say our faces are not our own because they are like our parents’.” Alexander Pope, 1688-1744, British author and wit. By the way, you think you have good excuses to not produce good work? Pope contract spinal tuberculosis as a child and had stunted growth as a result. He also had severe headaches, spasmodic fits and respiratory problems. He eventually had to wear an iron corset to simply sit upright.
Thanks to one of my favorite quote books for that information, Geary’s Guide to the World’s Great Aphorists.
Greetings to yesterday’s visitors from Qatar, Chili, Israel, France, Germany, India, Canada, and the UK! Hope to see you again soon.
We all know about the ‘butterfly effect’, right? A butterfly flaps its wings in Japan and eventually a storm is manifested around the far side of the globe. It’s a provocative way of saying everything, no matter how small, is connected and important.
But what about people? What happens when you purposely or inadvertently unravel a human being? What happens when you denigrate your son or daughter by making fun of them, or dismissing them? What happens when you trash someone else while they are watching and listening to you?
I have an acquaintance who grew frustrated with his young son’s inability to behave as he would have liked. He was a good father, wanting the best for his son. But his own history, his own impatience caused him to turn to sarcasm and put downs. Luckily that changed as the years have gone by and son and father are much better in their interactions now. But it did worry me back then, what sort of unraveling might be taking place.
Life is filled with those little unravelings at every turn. They have an effect far down the road, in our lives and in the lives of those who come after us. How do we minimize the unraveling, how do we repair it?
One of my favorite songs is ‘Love is the only house big enough for all the pain in the world’ by Martina McBride. It’s simplistic of course, but all truth eventually is. And the truth is that deep, insightful, patient, compassionate, mature and intelligent love are the knitting needles you need to repair and restore the unraveling you see, in yourself and others.
“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, one finds it attached to the rest of the world.” – John Muir, 1838-1914, Scottish born American naturist and writer
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A new blog, A Place for Thoughts, graciously published my Napkin Story on Saturday. It’s the same story you may have read here on the ‘beginnings’ page. But if you haven’t read how I got started drawing napkins, go check it out, ok?
The good new is, if you want an easy path for a walk, you can find one. If you want an easy path to lunch or dinner you can find one. But it is not likely, nor desirable, to find and walk an easy path in life.
I had a friend once who was 45 years old when the first bad thing ever happened to her. She found out her husband was a crack addict and she had to start divorce proceedings for the health and safety of her family.
I remember how shocked she was that it had happened. She really had no idea that most people are extremely lucky if they get to age 45 without a big negative in their life. The easy path she had been on really hadn’t prepared her well for this event in life. But this event did cause the upheaval that made her get a job, one that has been a life changer for her. It also led to a new marriage, one that opened up her life to amazing new possibilities.
None of this means I think she should have had a harder life. On the contrary, I am happy she had a wonderful, positive life with no negatives for as long as she did. It is simply the exception that proves the rule in my mind. That rule is that eventually the path you struggle on will be the one that leads you the farthest.
One of the most important things we can do for our kids is to expose them to the larger world. Whether that is as simple as going to a museum, watching a show on TV about an unfamiliar topic or as complex as a vacation abroad, letting your children see a world beyond their own daily life is essential to helping them make sense of their place in the world.
The goal isn’t to have them be disappointed with their daily life and the ‘lesser’ things that inhabit it. The goal is to understand how those lesser things connect to the larger world. Maybe they will understand how the TV show they watch actually has it’s roots in Shakespeare. Maybe they will realize the graphic design and photography they love in the windows at the mall had it’s roots in the museums of Europe or the pyramids in Mexico’s Yucatan, who knows.
The point is that no one’s world, no one’s things are truly ‘lesser’ if they know how to connect them to the large forces of culture, art, science and history.
“Man must be disappointed with the lesser things in life before he can comprehend the full value of the greater.” – Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1803-1873, English author. He wrote the famous line ‘It was a dark and stormy night’. San Jose State University (one of my Alma Maters) has an annual writing contest to find the worst original opening sentence for a novel. The contest is named after Bulwer-Lytton.
I know life can be hard. Very hard. I know because I have had very hard things happen in my life. But in the end, it isn’t life’s fault. It’s yours. Learn to play life correctly, no matter how hard, you will get harmony. Ignore the learning and just slam your existence onto the keyboard again and again and you will have discord.
It seems harsh to say, especially if you are going through a hard time right now. I have a friend whose dearest aunt just died and the family is arguing over the stupidest stuff, possessions not worth a dime, who deserves what, religious claptrap about her aunt, etc. They are pounding against the keys, creating a cacophony of ill will and discord.
But she is playing her life’s keys admirably amidst it all. She is remaining harmonious, which is helping her while she tries to explain the loss to her two young children, who were very close to the aunt.
“One plays piano, gets discord. Another plays, gets harmony. The piano is not at fault. The same is true of life.” – adapted by me from an anonymous quote
As some of you know, I have been training for my first marathon over the winter and spring. I ran the marathon yesterday, and finished strong, running the whole way. I was the hardest thing I have ever voluntarily done in my life.
Many of my friends have said, ‘Oh, I could never do that’. And they are right. They can’t. I couldn’t do it either. But that was me of 2 years ago that couldn’t do it, when I hadn’t run at all. It was me of 18 month ago when I had only run a 5k and a 10k. it was me a year ago before I had run a 1/4 marathon or a 1/2.
When did I know I could do it? When I realize my goals had repeatedly been transformed into accomplishments by training. I had discipline and trained. That is all it was. I had a group, that helped A LOT! We supported each other immeasurably. But in the end, support or no, it was doing the miles in training. It was getting up each and every Saturday, in bitter cold, bitter wind, bitter rain and running. It was running alone on the days I couldn’t make it to the group. All that was discipline. I stuck with it. That is all it was.
So, if you are saying that about a marathon, a job, a skill, a school semester, a relationship, a goal of any kind, then you are right. You can’t do it. BUT if you train, if you discipline yourself and do the time, the work, the exercises, etc. then you CAN. That is how your goals become accomplishments.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments.” – Jim Rohn, 1930-2009, American author and motivational speaker
