Tuesday's Mental Musings

Being polite was the way I was raised. Three phrases were taught to us - "Please", "Thank You" and "Excuse Me". We were taught when and how to use them with the understanding that these 3 words were gifts to both the receiver and user. Using them empowered us and made us humble. Unfortunately this tradition seems to be a thing of the past. These days I rarely hear the phrases exchanged during the course of my day and when I do I can count the number of times they are said in a single day on one hand.

There are those of us who believe using such phrases of politeness are a thing of the past. We believe we are entitled to receive, take and have what the "universe" gives us. These gifts include being able to push pass those of us too "slow" to grab it for ourselves. Or we believe that everything comes from a power higher than each other and ignore the human effort in even the minor occurances of our lives. The sad thing about living this way is that it limits our connection to each other. And by limiting this connection, and more importantly the understanding that we are connected, we are often left with the feeling of being alone and unsupported by the same universe supplying those gifts. This is not to say we don't build relationships, but I suspect those relationships become more codependent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codependency) rather than interdependent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdependence). By living this way I suspect that we lose the understanding that showing gratitude and grace is a true gift, not only to ourselves and each other, but to a universe so abundant that we often waste what can never seem to retrieve, human kindness towards it all.