a little common courtesy

i like to think that one of my best traits is my polite, friendly manner.

i feel that i am very good at helping people
feel comfortable in awkward situations

and that i have a very pleasant way of dealing with not so pleasant situations.
and i enjoy figuring out solutions and helping people to my fullest ability
when they ask me for assistance.

of course, if through your actions you become someone who i don't feel

deserves my polite kindness,

i can be pretty cantankerous, sarcastic, and unhelpful as well...

but usually i'm just plain nice.

well, i think i'm nice.

but lately i've had a few experiences with some people

who just seem to have horrible manners

and no instinct towards politeness or pleasantness at all.

and after an incident today,

i thought i'd share it and a few others with you.

1. 
there was the woman who emailed me today

to let me know that my extended health benefits have finally kicked in

(which is actually inaccurate, i'm still unable to sign into the online database)

and when i emailed back with a query about

the prescription that i had to fill yesterday

(and was wondering whether it would be covered

since my coverage only kicked in today

but was supposed to start on december 1st)

she emailed back

COVERAGE IS EFFECTIVE DECEMBER 01, 2009.

just like that...

all capitals,

no greeting,

no "in response to your inquiry..."

i felt like she was yelling at me.

this was actually the first instance where all caps

actually gave me the impression of yelling!

and it was not nice.

2.

our bus system allows people to get on the back doors of the bus

if you already have a pass or a transfer.

there are sometimes problems with this because

pushy vancouverites don't feel like waiting for everyone to get off the bus

before they start cramming themselves on.

but in my case, i waited patiently at the front of a long line of passengers

waiting to board through the back door

for the stream of exiting passengers to end

before i stepped up into the bus.

then a slow-moving woman came up and stood right in front of me

in her belated attempt to exit the bus

and proceeded to yell at me for thirty seconds about how impatient i was being.

except she hadn't even gotten up out of her seat
until i made a move to get on the bus.

so i looked at her with a mixture of disbelief and faintly masked humor

until she stopped yelling.

then i stepped down off the bus and said

"there you go"

and allowed her to get off.

3.

walking along the street with dante one afternoon,

i was shocked to hear a man yell at a jay-walking woman

who was obviously a stranger to him,

"great! see you when you get out of the hospital!"

as if her jay-walking had personally offended him

and he felt it was his duty to correct her behaviour.

i'm glad he hadn't yelled it at me

because i would probably have been so shocked

that my concentration would have been shot

and i would have gotten hit by a car.

...

i don't really see the point

in being rude

when you could just be nice

and make someone's day better

instead of worse.

unless they really deserve it.

hopefully you agree :)

image from here

promises to myself

 

to be true to myself

not to be peer pressured

not to keep quiet when something bothers me

not to worry whether something i do, if it's best for me, makes someone angry, or unhappy, or annoyed

to admit right away when i do something wrong or make a mistake, and then to no longer let it bother me

not to let things linger

to do what is best for me

to be emotionally responsible 

to have confidence in myself and my decisions

to trust my gut (and go with it)

to stop worrying about what everyone else thinks

to be my very best me.

the secret to letting go

I've been noticing lately, especially over the past few months, that every once in awhile i'll be hit with a pang of guilt that seems to come from nowhere. when i explore the feeling, and try to pinpoint what exactly the train of thought this is ever-running in the back of my mind the guilt is coming from. usually i realize that it's from a memory of something that i am less-than-satisfied with. something i did (or didn't do) that i feel should have been done differently - something in the performance of my life that i'm not happy with.

This memory is accompanied by a wincing, regretful, pang-y feeling that is probably the worst feeling i've ever experienced. i try to distract myself right away, because i realize there is nothing that i can do to change what happened, and dwelling on it will only suck me down into the depths of these cringey feelings that make me feel nauseous and want to hide under a pillow. i wish i could expel these memories, or make them drop into one of the fissures of my brain so that they can't be accessed again, but they have a tendency to pop up over and over... 

the member of my staff last year who i should have dealt with differently

the stupid thing i said to someone who i was trying to

make a good impression on

the time i didn't speak up when a friend said something

really domineering and rude to me

...all the stuff that makes me feel really stupid and embarrassed,
angry at myself and wishing i could do it over.

upon reflection, i guess the only way to remove these thoughts from my memory and keep them from forever popping up in my back-of-mind thought train, is to do better. use every day to be the best person i can be, and show myself that those embarrassing, i-hate-myself moments are but a very small portion of the person i actually am (and eventually, they won't even be a significant portion), because they are being replaced every day by memories of the amazing girl who says what she means, who makes the right decisions, who takes action when something needs to be done, basically, the girl who does and says all the right things, who goes with her gut & reacts in a way that is true to herself. that is who i want to be, and if i can just try to remember those things that i value most about myself every single day, in every situation, then i can start to do things that way, and eventually those regretful memories will be lost in a sea of amazing memories that i can think back on and say "wow i'm so glad i did that!"

what are the things you do or say that make you proud to be you?
what makes you feel empowered and amazing?
are you doing those things every day?
are you staying true to your best self?

it's a challenge, but i'm working on it.