What Has Our Society Come To? Why Have We Allowed It to Come to This?

This is a question I ask myself frequently. I am no example of perfection. I have good and bad days like anyone else. On my bad days I have moods and can be mean or short with the people I work with, or even my wife. Even on these days, even at my worst, I still think about what I say and how it will affect someone.

There are many people out there who do not seem to show any interest in the well being of those around them. I am not saying they are bad parents or friends, or employees. I don’t know these people well enough to surmise these things. What I am talking about is the numerous brief interactions we have with people we may never see again.

People we will never be friends with. The nameless retail assistants, gas station attendants and faceless drivers we encounter every day. Why do we feel it is okay to treat others with anything less than the respect we expect ourselves?

I work in a restaurant. My wife works in a pharmacy. She has it worse than me. We both encounter people every day, the rude, the ignorant, and the truly offensive. What is it that goes through a persons mind as they scream and yell, throwing a tantrum that would shame a five year old, just because they had to wait twenty minutes for a prescription, or in line at the drive-thru?

Is the raging impatience in their minds so vicious that such a minor inconvenience as a changing stop light can cause them to risk their car, their lives and the lives of other drivers, (and passengers, who may be children, like those many of you have yourselves) just to save a second or two. I have no answer to this. I do not know what goes through peoples minds as they rush around oblivious to the needs and feelings of others. I probably don’t want to know. It might crush the last remaining spark of hope I hold for humanity.

We can however, discuss some possibilities. It could be that hatred, competition, and intolerance, or just natural human traits. In this case, no matter what we do there is no escaping our nature. It would be justified in the great scheme of things to insult and verbally abuse, to threaten to kill someone because they did not have your prescription ready on time.