Be Polite, Save the World.

Has anyone else noticed that it is becoming more acceptable to be rude to others than to be polite? Everywhere you go people are surly and bad mannered. Service people are snappy and standoffish. Drivers are selfish and angry. Its commonplace to see people flip each other off for daring to pass or pull ahead in traffic. If you have ever attempted to change lanes in bumper to bumper traffic you know what I am talking about. If people were simply kinder, traffic would not be so stressful. You would turn on your signal and the person behind you would give you room without fist waving and yelling.
When did it become so acceptable to be rude? When did we stop expecting common human kindness and start accepting bad manners? We need to take some action to show we don’t appreciate being treated with anger. Don’t you remember your mom and grandma drilling good manners into you? Or even your teachers drilling the golden rule “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Is it really so hard to smile and be polite?
I realized the other day when someone was polite enough to let me turn in a traffic jam after waiting several moments for a opening that we can really only control the way we act. If each of us makes an effort to be more polite in our day to day life maybe it will rub off on others. At the very least we may be happier knowing that we are not causing more anger. Being polite and treating each other as humans should be the easiest thing you can do. It costs us nothing and gains us much peace.