When does courtesy matter?

I often talk about courtesy and lament the decline of this most rudimentary of personality traits. In this age of instant information, and just about everything being at a person's fingertips, one would think there would be a little more time in life to show some common courtesy but alas, it is not to be seemingly.

The word Courtesy means the showing of politeness in one's attitude and behaviour towards others and I do not believe it takes a whole lot of effort to apply in day to day life. If you are unaware of exactly which situations in life courtesy can be applied to then you can probably google it I suppose; I'm not going to list any however wanted to pose one scenario to you for comment considering steemfest is coming up and people will interact without the safety net/filter of their computers in between.

Imagine you are talking to a person, having a conversation in the workplace for instance. Let's call you person A and the other person B. You're happily conversing when in walks person C who interjects on you, mid-sentence, and begins a new (unrelated) conversation with person B. Now, person B turns away from you and engages in the new conversation initiated by person C. So, who has shown discourtesy, lack of manners and respect in this situation?

I'll make it easier for you...Definitely NOT person A. So, in my opinion person C is the most discourteous and disrespectful here due to showing no regard to the importance of the conversation at hand. However person B is not innocent and also shows a lack of respect by turning to engage in the new conversation disregarding the one already running with person A.

In my opinion person B should have excused themselves from person A, turned to person C and advised that they will be with them in a moment once finished with person A, the original conversation.

Person C, at this point, should feel like a rude asshole and apologise profusely of course. Naturally that doesn't happen often though as person C is indeed a rude asshole and thinks their conversation or needs are more important than that of person A or B hence the interruption in the first place.

Have you ever done this? I bet you have. I used to sometimes as well, much to my disgrace, until I realised what an asshole-act it was. It is so demeaning to person A and can often put person B into a bad or awkward situation being torn between both conversations. Of course, the right course of action is to make person C wait until the conversation is done, or at the very least ask to be excused from the initial conversation and to pick it up later. To simply turn and start the secondary conversation is wrong. This is of course subjective because if person C interject to say their is a bomb in the building then persons A and B would want to know quickly. But my original scenario assumes this is not the case.

This scenario happened to me this morning and punctuated my thoughts about person C, (the interjector) that I already felt them to be rude and inconsiderate in nature towards others. That's now confirmed unequivocally. Especially so when that person came over to my office after I walked away to justify the interjection by saying it was to arrange buying some cupcakes. What the actual fuck?! Asshole.

Manners, courtesy and respect are an endangered species I think. Are they dinosaurs and dead completely? Hmm, maybe so as a lack of manners and respect tends to be the default setting for most although there are some people out there who hold to the courteous ways.

Justifying bad manners is on the rise though, as if the justification of that lack of respect and manners actually is regarded as having respect and courtesy in itself. Here's a heads up though...It isn't.

Showing no respect is a lack of respect. Displaying bad manners is actually bad manners and forgoing courtesy is in fact a *lack of courtesy. That's all there is and there's no justification that makes it anything other than that.

So, the next time you feel justified to interject on other people already engaged in a conversation just don't. Do yourself a favour, count to ten and ask yourself if what you are about to do is courteous to the others. Would you like it to happen to you in mid-sentence? The answer should be no and therefore don't do it to others. It's pretty fundamental.

Courtesy, politeness, respect and good manners towards others are a set of personality traits humans can command within themselves. They are not dependent upon outside influences and in fact can stand completely apart from them. That person who maintains their courtesy-ethos stands taller than those who do not, a paragon amongst the egotistical and narcissistic masses around them.

Of course, I'm not talking about people on Steemit. I mean, with steemfest coming up and users getting together, meeting for the first time mostly, everyone will be courteous and respectful I'm sure...

When does courtesy matter I entitled this post. The answer is always. It doesn't matter that those around you are not so...Just show courtesy and respect and you can stand tall knowing you are being the best version of yourself.

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