“Beauty gives you peace, wherever you encounter it in the world.”

~Jens Jensen

A variety of events, occasions and articles have formulated into this post. I am in the midst of binge watching season 5 of Downton Abbey before it is no longer streaming on PBS.org, I read an article that 5/3 bank commissioned a study of our impatience as part of their new marketing campaign (we are a terribly impatient crowd), and I have stumbled back upon these unrelated quotations that I am using in this post and they helped my disparate thoughts to gel. Plus other bits of mental flotsam and jetsam.

Downton is set in a time that was more mannered than our own, not a time that was simpler (though we like to imagine that past times were simpler than our own, because we crave simplicity), but also a time when there were stricter class distinctions.  Courtesy ruled interactions, decorum was de rigueur, and while class might have locked you in place it also told you where you stood.

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”

~Mother Teresa

When the societal changes after WWI started to gather strength, somehow courtesy was weakened with the loosening of class structure.  We have lamented the increasing lack of common courtesy for a very long time, it seems. But still niceties can be more like curiosities these days.  Since solutions have to start somewhere, I work to stay conscious of my own level of courtesy.  There are times when strangers are almost amazed when I have held a door for them.  Not just pleased or thankful, but stunned from complacency.

public domain image

My local grocery chain is running a promotion right now that I am not participating in, though I have gotten dishes and cookware from past promotions.  When I’m asked if I am participating, I check with the person behind me in line and if they are I say that I am and give them the tokens.  It is a little thing, but it makes us both feel good.  I have been the beneficiary of such gestures in those past promotions.

These are tiny little connections with my fellow humans that I only wish could be more frequent.  Sometimes I am too deep in a reverie and I miss opportunities, which is unfortunate. Perhaps a part of our general impatience is just the fact that we have too many interactions with others that are lacking in any connection. Sometimes the opposite happens, I walk into the store frustrated and out of sorts at the end of a long day and by that simple act of sharing those tokens and making eye contact I walk out feeling better about the world.

© 2015 BAReed Writing | Practical Business, All rights reserved

Tagged: Attitude, Gratitude, Life, Perspective, Purpose