Take for granted

No long before, I used to read an article about why we tend to treat strangers with such courteous, great manners and politeness but on the other hands, we treat our loved ones with rudeness, discourteous in other words, our manners towards them are simply loutish.

Its very funny don’t u think? When we are in presence of a total stranger say, in a plane and there is a man sitting next to u. U are on ur headphone watching a movie when this man started tapping your shoulder just to ask u where the washroom is. Of coz ure annoyed coz he’s interrupting ur movie but u smile anyway and answer in full sentence, “hmm…I think its right at the back,” or “Sorry, I’m not sure about that. Why don’t u ask the steward over there?” But if the person interrupting is one of ur friend or someone significant to u, u tend to answer them tersely, “at the back.!” Or “Gee, I don’t know. Look for it urself!”

The problem is, u don’t realize ure doing this. Partly because u feel so close to them and u think, “Ah, its just Brandon. He’ll understand,” or u feel, hey, this is ur close friend, why the courteous and all?

Same goes when u want to ask someone to do something for u. If that someone happens to be a stranger or just a mutual friend, maybe you would rather do it yourself than asking for help. But if it happens to someone significant, u’d go like , “hey, take that for me?” or “U do this, this and this. Oh ya, on your way out u do that too,”

And again, u don’t realize ure doing this. Ive done my share too im sure. But I always try to stop myself when I realize im doing this. The moment the realization pops up, I stop. Coz lets face it, regardless of who they are or what they are, the bottom line is they are mere humans. Humans have feelings. So the least u can do for them after all the things and crap they put up with u is to try ur level best to appreciate them. If u can treat others nicely why don’t u treat them the same? Whats the harm in that?

To quote Lynne Truss, being nice doesn’t cost u a dime (im paraphrasing) and its very hard to find anything that comes for free these days. So lets start with the people around us. Instead of answering them with a curt rejection note, dismissively and abruptly (so many, u name it!) lets be more hospitable, warm, welcoming, affable or maybe even try to be genial even when u feel like tearing some one alive. One of our biggest mistake is we tend to let our anger takes the best of us and we take it out on the people who are closest to us. In other words, ure driving them away from u. And let me tell u another fact about humans. Humans wont realize what they have lost until its gone…