64 | October 2011 | woman this month WoMentality We constantly hear the buzz words “sustainability”, “carbon emission” and the real killer: “global warming”. From rising ocean levels to the decline of the polar bear, we are always wading through news about the destruction of Mother Nature. If you ask me, though, we are degrading the earth’s people far faster and more devastatingly than Mother Nature could possibly work. Eventually, given time, the world can and will right itself. Yet as people, it is not so easily done. Are people too busy, too important or just too inconsiderate to care about each other any more? Hard-headed Woman London Calling We came from hunters and gatherers with no manners or language. We developed skills, speech and, as time went on, technology. This has allowed us to feel busy, more important, much smarter. But the effects of this development are not always positive. In my opinion, many of us are heading back to the inconsiderate, ill-mannered and brutish attitudes of the Neanderthal era from whence we came. It is quite frightening to think that the eventual result of this could be the total decline of civilisation, war, death, obliteration. “Liberty cannot be preserved, if the manners of the people are corrupted”, so spoke Algernon Sidney (1623-1683). Recent proof of this is the hooliganism that has taken place on the streets of London. Wanton destruction for no reason, other than mischief and boredom and a lack of manners and respect. Why is it that words such as “trust”, “honesty”, and “appreciation” all have little to no meaning anymore. Wall Street bankers, politicians and business people in their search and need for possessions and dollars have eroded our faith. I have a boss who has rarely stated the words “thank you” or “please” in nearly two years, yet I have often worked tirelessly to get him out of close calls and tricky situations. What do we expect from our children if these words mean little to us? Two or three generations from now, what do we consider a world without thanks will be like? It is a shame to think that we are all so arrogant that “thank you” is beyond us and the mindless destruction of property, without thought or regard for the livelihood we are destroying, comes naturally. Wake up and forget the rhetoric about carbon emissions and global warming, el Niño and the melting of ice caps. It would seem our hearts and minds have melted far faster than anything Mother Nature could have created. Wake up and smell the roses, every one of us. Smile! Ask with a “please”; end with a “thank you”, get your heads out of your laptops and your ears away from your mobile phones whilst talking to others. Take a minute to spend some quality enjoyment time with those younger than yourself and teach them right from wrong. Don’t expect that their teachers, parents or even friends will do it. Each one of us has a moral obligation to assist the next generation to learn from ours and their own mistakes. We are all responsible for the betterment of the planet; not just its resources, but its future generations. Respect starts with those who know what it means and travels down to those we teach. Recent events in London would dictate that respect has eroded on many levels and has stopped being passed down. We need to get over our own self importance and each become responsible for the actions of others. It is time we looked up from our iPads, our mobile phones and our laptops, to take a minute to think about the person who might be sitting next to us. To have a conversation with a friend or a child. Human interaction, communication, co-operation and the passing of learned information is the way forward. The truth is, none of us are that important. One day, each and every one of us will pass away and someone else will replace us. One hundred years from now, the ozone, the green forests of the Amazon and the icecaps may well remain, but sadly kindness, politeness, manners, respect and humanity may not.
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