Where to Begin

Gratitude.

Yesterday my cousin asked a group of her friends on Facebook if they experienced common courtesy anymore and to expound upon that experience. There were a couple of negative responses that, to me, didn't really respond to the question she had asked. The responses reminded me of what "grown-ups" sounded like to me when I was a child: rather general, without thoughtful contemplation, and defaulting to the negative.

We can do better.

Common courtesy in a dictionary sense, possibly even a social sense, does imply (necessitate?) an agreement on what behavior is courteous and that the people involved in the encounter comply with this behavior. But this is too limited and technical for me.

I live in a very diverse community: racially, ethnically, linguistically, economically, religiously, and with regard to age, national origin, and - no doubt- world view. It is a beautiful microcosm. Sometimes it is exasperating; sometimes beautiful and uplifting. Living here has alerted me to how many assumptions I have built-in about what is "common courtesy" and that these tenants are not shared by all, and perhaps more importantly, that just because others do not share all of the same measures of courtesy, they do have measures of courtesy.

When curiosity and understanding step into play, we might realize that there's more common courtesy in the world than we see at first glance. We might also realize that sometimes someone is dissing us and we didn't realize it before. :}

The biggest factor that I felt had been overlooked by some of the reactions to my cousin's question was this: a mind-set of gratitude, kindness, compassion, generosity, and faith in human beings. There seemed to be too much focus on the legalistic application of the term "common courtesy".

Every single day I experience common courtesies. If I were more in a mindset of openness and gratitude instead of sometimes being in too big a hurry or distracted, I would probably experience even more moments of courtesy because I would notice them.

Finally, I think that sometimes we confuse common courtesy with surface politeness, when what is really important is a genuine goodness of heart, graciousness, peace, and demonstrating a genuine love of our neighbors.