Oh Man

It’s true. The majority of people my age and older (and starting younger) are pretty much impolite jerks, who go out into the world seeing only what they want and what they want, is everything. Now.

This is not an opinion shaped by the media, reading statistics or made through some terrible life experience of my own, but from seeing the way people act on a daily basis. The crime rates in a lot of areas have remained the same, if not decreased, however, it is not these rates that determine how we connect as people. The general apathy of society has become something which constantly surprises me. We have all been taught be be frightened if strangers approach us, to feel suspicion to those who act kind… there is no such thing as the kindness of strangers until there is a drastic situation.

Okay, a somewhat extreme example. Let’s pretend there is a drowning woman, a stranger goes out and saves her, a completely kind act. She will be so thankful, that her life is now saved. Now, pretend again this woman is sitting at a park, and the stranger bought too much of something, we will go with apples. The stranger offers the apples to the woman, a completely kind act.

How many of you are willing to bet the woman will either not take them at all, or be suspicious of the stranger until finally trusting them enough to take them, not necessarily eat them. Why does it now take extreme circumstances for us to believe that people are genuinely kind? It’s not the people who get locked up behind bars that scare me anymore, those people get caught the majority of the time. It’s the people who walk around and ignore a situation simply because it doesn’t involve them directly.

People are more likely to tweet about a tragedy to get a reaction from others than to actually react themselves.

Post written by Heather Whitney