If it seems old-fashioned to expect someone to hold the door open for others, write thank-you notes or simply say “please” and “thank you,” then call me old-fashioned, because I believe that manners should be timeless. Manners are more than rules of etiquette. They are the social skills we use to show others that we know the world doesn’t revolve around us.
It’s making eye contact when talking to another person. It’s a firm handshake when meeting. It’s holding the elevator door for someone running to catch it — and then pressing their floor button if you’re closer to the panel.
It’s about letting people merge in traffic — and offering grace to the driver who is obviously searching for an address. It’s not laying on the horn a half-second after the light turns green. Good manners show our fellow humans that we care about them.
Yet there are many who don’t practice them. You can learn a lot about manners, or lack thereof, in a parking lot. In fact, I could write a book about poor parking (or poor driving in general) behavior.
Not parking between the lines, sitting in the car and stalling when people are waiting for a spot, taking a space someone else was waiting for, etc. We’ve all had annoying parking incidents, but there are those occasional positive experiences — and I had one recently! I was running errands with my daughter when we pulled into a crowded shopping center and noticed an empty spot right up front. We assumed it was reserved for d.
