What do you consider common courtesy? Growing up in the south, I've spent my whole life hearing about a certain type of guy. A "southern gentleman." Someone who holds the door for you, opens your car door for you, stands up when a woman walks into the room. Someone who is just genuinely kind and sincere. Most of the time, people like this don't pan out. It's a front. A rouse. A show that they put on to get attention, or to divert away from who they actually are. Just because you live in the south, doesn't mean you will come into contact with handfuls of these "southern gentlemen." Hell, you may not even meet one.
I've begun to notice more and more each day about what used to be considered common courtesy. Standing up for someone who can't stand up for themselves, being honest, keeping your world. Commercials on the television depict a young boy chasing after a bus because a woman accidentally left her purse on the bench, and police keep an eye on him because he is running down an alley with a purse, but it turns out he is just returning it. Someone left their purse and you returned it...seems like common courtesy to me. Unfortunately, our society today thinks differently. People who turn in large sums of money they accidentally find make headline news. A high school football team standing up for a student named Chy who has microcephaly, a birth defect that has left the high school sophomore with only a third grade brain level. I'm not disagreeing that these situations shouldn't be important, but the reason that they make the news isn't because the story is touching, it's because the actions of the individuals are unusual. Why is that? Why can't people simply stand up and do the right thing? These instances shouldn't make headline news. The situations where people DO NOT treat people this way should. Sure, the stories and photos are heartwarming to say the least. The people who read them sigh, smile, and even shed a tear or two. But at the end of the day, does that mean that they will treat someone differently simply because of what they read?
"Character is how you treat those who can do nothing for you."
Girls my age have an unnatural obsession with love stories. The Notebook, Dear John, A Walk to Remember, PS I Love You, Nights in Rodanthe, Letters to Juliet, Casablanca, Pretty Woman, Beauty and the Beast, Titanic, The Bridges of Madison County, Grease, Dirty Dancing, Footloose...the list goes on and on. Girls read these books or see the movies and wonder why they can't find a love like those written in the pages by their favorite author.
At the end of the day, a wolf in sheep's clothing is still a wolf. Women come into relationships looking for their prince charming, yet they let their standards fall through their hands like grains of sand, wasting away towards their childhood dreams of a white picket fence. Mothers say that they want to raise a son to be the perfect gentleman, yet the relationships that they display for their sons are far from a fairytale. If men and women don't stand up and be the standard rather than the exception, our dreams of fairly tale romances will be just that. Fairytales. Told as bedtime stories each evening as the cycle repeats itself, destined to leave little girls wondering where their Noah or Johnny is, and men wondering why Allie ran off with Lon and why Baby was left in the corner.
If we constantly waste our time daydreaming about what could be, our dreams will remain just out of our reach. Instead of thinking of these heartwarming stories as an exception, life your life as though they are the standard.
"Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching." CS Lewis
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