“Please”, “Thank you” & Etiquette

Before emails, we had typewriters and regular post for staying in touch or conducting business. Before texts, we had telephones requiring a voice conversation. Before social media, we had to face people directly to express ourselves.

While I fully appreciate and take advantage of our modern-day advances, there are some ‘rules of engagement’ that I continue to hold basic to any type of communication. (In fact, this isn’t the first time I’ve written along a similar vein.)

These are: writing greetings and closings in any type of message, and saying both ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ – even if I don’t necessarily mean them or even deem the receiver worthy of the words.

I’ve tried to explain away the lack of following such rules to: generational differences, issues related to certain demographics, or even possibly upbringing. However, after a few conversations with others, who do not lack an understanding of the rules, and a bit of stalking on whether persons-in-question do follow them in other circumstances, these explanations that I have tried to apply do not seem to fit.

Therefore, the only remaining reasons for such poor behavior are disrespect and a sense of entitlement.

Although my father, in his 70-plus years of wisdom, tried to tell me that I cannot change people and that I just have to learn to accept that some people are rude, I have to half disagree. Throughout my life, I have already accepted and believe that people are rude arseholes – that is an easy one to get over. The other is not, as I do not believe that I cannot contribute to changing people. People cannot change if they do not know that they need to. Even if they rebuke my attempt at informing them of another concept of ‘common courtesy’, I still feel that I can feel satisfied that I have done my part to raise awareness and hope for a future growth into a better person.

Still, in doing so, my level of frustration increases and a tense airs hangs about me as I come to terms with my disappointment in humanity. It is strange how the shortest phrases and simplest of words can somehow become the most difficult for people to express.

I’ve started to wonder what sort of energy I am putting out that people feel that they don’t need to be polite to me or follow certain forms of etiquette – especially when they don’t know me and are younger than I. It is very plausible that I have something to learn from these situations – whether it is to accept and move on, stop trying to correct, or learn to ignore it. At the moment, I’m not yet sure what it is, but I trust in the fact that over time my learning will be revealed or my conviction will be vindicated.

Either way, I do hope that society will not start accepting that professional interactions do not need to include greetings and closings nor that ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ are an unnecessary part of ensuring the building of relationships.

Dear Members of Society,

Please use a certain level of etiquette when interacting with fellow members of the world.

Thank you!

Yours truly,

~T 🔥🐉♋️