You always hear "Those who give shall receive," right?
Newsflash! Not in today's society.
The action verb of the day is: manipulate.
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In current society, people are starting to forget the basic gestures of kindness which should be exchanged in human relationships. The focus of today's world is to succeed, but unfortunatley success is coming at the expense of everyone else.
The American Dream is to succeed and make it on your own. But Americans are taking things a little to far, not caring what, or who, they must overcome to get that taste of their dream. It's not longer about compromises, but rather, self-indulgence.
Apparently, taking advantage of people is acceptable in everyday life. If someone offers something that could be beneficial to you, you sure as heck are gonna take it, despite the expense to them. If there is someone else who could possibly do your work for you, you are going to make sure that you find a way out of doing it yourself. If there is some kind of shortcut to bypass doing something at someone else's expense, but it won't directly effect you, you're gonna take off running down that shortcut.
I mean really, who cares if you happen to end up ahead of the other guy because you were quick on your feet and the other guy wasn't?
Unfortunatley, this is the American outlook these days. It's all about self promotion, taking advantage of others to benefit yourself.
Prime example:
I work at an electronics store and sell car audio. I'll have people come in and say, "Awh, c'mon, can't you do me a favor and take $20 off the price." Or, "Can't you just through in something extra because I am spending $300." Or, I have a lot of friends that are like, "Wow, I really need some subwoofers right now. I hear you get a good discount, so if I give you the money, will you buy them for me?"
Then, when you ask them what they will do for you... They say: nothing.
Ok, I don't know about you, but that's not much of a trade off. People are greedy. They expect to get favors without having to do anything in return. They only worry about how things are effecting them.
What happened to that idea of "shared prosperity?" You know, where people work together to achieve success? Rather than just walk all over other people just so they will be better off.
I'm disgusted. Where has generousity gone in America today?
Doing nice things for people and just being polite in general have also found their way into being deemed as sexual harrassment and anti-feminism. I remember hearing of women actually slapping a guy in the face because he held the door for them....I think we should take all of the niceness we can get out of this world as it comes, and remember to say thank you more often.
In some cases at politeness, women take it too far in terms of thinking of it as anti-feminist. But you have to remember, a lot of chivalrous types of behavior are condescending towards women. And THAT is definitely not polite.
On a more general note, people aren't polite for a multitude of reasons, and I'll describe a few here.
1.) Aren't raised to be. Don't see it in the family or in the home.
2.) Why should they be? They get nothing out of it.
3.) People aren't being polite to them, so why bother?