I consider myself a polite person. I believe I'm overly nice to nearly everyone. I wasn't always polite, but I was never an a$$hole either. I just kind of did my own thing and ignored people for most of my early life. Ironically, television inspired me to be more polite to people. There was a show I was in love with called Due South. It was about a Canadian Mounty that traveled south in pursuit of his father's killer and decided to stay there. He was extremely polite, uncharacteristically intelligent, and just a general good guy. He constantly believed that people always had the best intentions. At first everyone thought he was weird, but his ways brought everyone around for the better.
What was most appealing about that show to me was how everyone just instinctively trusted him because of his good nature. His reputation was gold, and his word was his bond. So, I decided to try that lifestyle out. I made it a point to be nicer to everyone I knew, and go out of my way to be polite and help people. It was actually a lot easier than I thought, because, apparently, I'm just a nice person by nature. I was around people that weren't, and I thought that was the way you're supposed to be. What was more surprising was the motivation. To be completely honest, at first, I was motivated because I wanted more respect and I wanted to be praised for being nice. I wanted people to listen to me and value my opinions, etc. It was stupid, but I was a young kid who just didn't feel important. Something happened after about a month, though. I found I actually truly enjoyed helping people and how it made me feel. There was no greater feeling in the world.
As I've grown older into my mid-30's, something is troubling me. I'm finding it easier to start becoming more reclusive and bitter. The division in the country, the extremely strong political views, the need for everyone's opinion to be heard and understood, and the fact that if you do not agree with them, then there is either something wrong with you, or they need to explain it more. I don't remember it being this way. I remember a time when people would just say, "Eh, I see it differently," and we would move on. Now, everyone is offended and feel it's their right to not only have the opportunity to be heard, but to have everyone share the same opinion or they're wrong and intolerant.
I worry about the future of this country in general. The Politically Correct stuff is destroying some real values, it feels. It's making everyone want to simply keep opinions, thoughts, and ideas to themselves. Anything that is brought in the open is vulnerable, and the person that brought it out has the potential of being completely ruined, all because the majority of people didn't agree with them. It's gotten me to the point that I don't want to share an opinion on anything at all anymore, and that is very disturbing. What happened? How did we come to a place where differences were persecuted? It's like the equality everyone was fighting for didn't happen; it just changed sides.
