The distracted mother, traveling with her children, failed to notice that they had left her side to find a restroom. When she suddenly realized that they were missing, she began yelling at airport personnel to find them. In her desperation, she chased the employees and ended up destroying the reservation counter.
An impatient customer at a fast-food restaurant argued with a young worker and then threw a metal chair at her.
In 2020, staff at a national park in the US put up a sign asking people to be patient and kind. Thinking things were improving, they took the sign down in 2021, only to put it up again in 2022.
Today, so much of what we have taken for granted is changing. Shelves are not always well-stocked, flights get canceled, helpful workers are no longer always there, longer lines proliferate. In the face of all these, our response is not always accommodating and patient. We're already on edge, so it's easy to become unbalanced, embarrassed, or irritated when things go wrong. Courtesy has vanished, and self-control is lost.
In the past, only a few people might have witnessed the occasional public flare-up and soon forgotten about it. Also, it was easier for a person to apologize when there were only a few witnesses around. But that's changed. The airport, store, and restaurant incidents just related were recorded on the smartphones of several bystanders. Then posted on social media. Periodically, such incidents prove so outlandish that the media pick them up, and we see them in our news feeds.
As an experiment to see how this might feel, try to dredge up an incident when you spoke in your outside voice. You were having a terrible day, and one more annoyance was just one too many. Suddenly you blew up. Now imagine if everyone around you turned in your direction and, as it is so natural nowadays, videoed everything with their cell phones. How would you have felt? The world at large will get to see your loss of self-control. And now you will always be known as the person who acted out and shouted at an innocent person, someone just trying to get on with their life.
This is our new reality in the age of social media. And a reminder of why a flash of disregard for others, a few moments of being uncivil, can have terrible consequences
Such a moment occurred on a spring day in 2020. Christian, a birdwatcher, and Amy, a woman walking her dog, encountered one another in a semi-wild area of New York City's Central Park. There were signs posted that dogs must be leashed at all times. Seeing that Amy's dog was running free, Christian asked her to put it on a leash.
Words were exchanged, and Christian, who was black, held up his smartphone and began filming. Amy, who was white, called 911 and said that an African-American man was threatening her. An accusation she later admitted was false. Since cell phone reception was poor in the heavily wooded area, the dispatcher asked Amy two times to repeat what she was saying. Amy complied with the dispatcher’s request. By the time the police arrived, both Christian and Amy had left.
Very quickly, at a time of particularly high racial tensions in the U.S., news of the incident and Christian's video, posted by his sister and with his permission, went viral. Neither had expected the video to get much attention, but it did. Comments of "white privilege" and "Karen" quickly followed.
Within hours, Amy found herself placed on leave and then fired from her position at a major financial firm. The day after the incident, she issued a public apology. Charged with making a false police report, the charges were later dropped after she attended sessions focused on racial identity.
But Amy's life was irrevocably changed. Friends and people who lived in her building were interviewed. Details of her life made the news. The New York Times newspaper wrote articles about the incident. Wikipedia even has a page about it!
The catalyst for all this? A breach of civility.
Civility isn't about following old-fashioned rules of etiquette. And it's more than just being polite, although that's an excellent place to start. Civility is respecting others by being courteous, especially when there is disagreement. It's being able to put aside our own point of view and listening to others. It's being open to others rather than pre-judging them. Civility is acting with kindness and respect.
The incident between Christian and Amy occurred in the Ramble, a wooded, semi-wild area inhabited by various species of birds. There are signs that say dogs must be kept on a leash at all times. Amy had ignored the signs so that her dog could run free. She then ignored a request from Christian to put her dog on a leash, as well as a suggestion of a nearby off-leash area where she could take her dog.
She had not been courteous to a fellow hiker, had not been mindful of migrating birds, had not obeyed posted rules, had not respected the natural environment. And, regardless of how we feel about what happened, she paid a terrible price. What began as a simple lack of civility quickly exploded into what was perceived as white privilege and racial intolerance. Amy lost her management position at a prestigious investment firm, received vitriolic threats against her and her family, and ended up leaving the country.
A terrible price to pay. One due to a lack of civility and an accompanying lack of emotional control. Recognizing the potential consequences of our lack of civility in such difficult situations, we need to end our tantrums and return to civility.
Basically, we're talking about treating others with consideration and respect, and valuing their wishes as much as our own.
It takes a few extra minutes to cross the street and get to an off-leash dog area, but wouldn't playing with our dog be more fun if we weren't constantly looking over our shoulder to make sure no one caught us in the wrong area? Wouldn't asking for help in finding our missing children get more people to help than yelling at them? Wouldn’t eating a burger after some wait be better than being dragged out of the restaurant by our friends pleading about how we’re going to get arrested for throwing a chair at a worker?
Losing our temper and throwing a tantrum is a choice. It won't feel like it at that moment, but it is
We have a choice in what we tell ourselves about other people and daily situations. Just like us, others are trying to function as best they can in an increasingly challenging, ever-changing, stressful world. We would do well to view others with empathy and compassion. Were it not for our karmic causes and current conditions, we might be doing the job, be of the same race or religion, gender or age as the person we are judging and yelling at. Wouldn't we appreciate being respected and treated with courtesy if that were the case? Not looked down upon or insulted? Or worse?
Wouldn’t we appreciate being forgiven by an understanding customer we were slow to serve, a coworker we had inconvenienced, a passerby we had inadvertently bumped into on a crowded sidewalk?
We would do well to understand that the circumstances in our lives—our financial situation, social standing, employment status—are karmic consequences that occurred in this lifetime. They serve to indicate whether we are enjoying good fortune or not. They can show us what we need to do to have better lives in the future.
So, for now, what we have is not as important as who we are character-wise and how we think and behave. Humility and generosity toward those with whom we interact are far wiser choices than arrogance. They are choices that will help us enjoy better karmic consequences in our future lives.
We thus need to choose civility. To let go of self-interest and consider the interests of others. To remember that, like us, they may lose their temper when frightened or when things do not go as they planned. And that, like us, they would greatly appreciate that we understood and forgave their loss of civility toward others.
Civility also includes open engagement with others. What could be more respectful than telling someone we want to know what they think about something and then listening attentively? Asking questions in a non-combative way is also respectful. The goal here is not to convince the other person that we're right or to prove our moral superiority. The point of being civil with others is to be respectful and maybe even learn something new.
All of this requires us to control our emotions. Being rude, bullying others, discriminating, and destroying property all have consequences. Even if they don't happen right away, they will come back to get us at some point. The question is when. And how painful they will be.
For now, once the momentary rush of adrenaline wears off, tantrums are emotionally and physically draining. And then, thanks to all those smartphones, the Internet, and social media, there's the reality that what we do will always be one click away from making us infamous. College admissions officers, future employers, loan officers, and even prospective dates checking people out online will not be impressed. Like with Amy, the cost of a momentary loss of civility can be terrible.
Civility costs us nothing. But its returns are priceless.