The Anatomy of a Rude Person

Is agist a word? If it is, I would define it as being prejudiced against those of a certain age or age category. I have to admit, I am just a bit agist. Growing up, I was constantly shaking my head at the rude, blunt ways of my grandfather. As I grew into my teens and started my real estate business at fifteen years old, I became even more agist as I was continually looked down upon by those in their middle aged years and older. You know the type: the older generations that have nothing good to say about the younger generations, the ones that think we'll do nothing but ruin the world that they have already spent their chances in.

Hypocritical? Yeah, a little. For my experience, I have been belittled and mocked for being successful in life before the turn of my second decade by those whom have spent many decades on the surface here. I saw the older generations complain about my own as if we were all a bunch of disgusting rats. To be fair, however, there I was, judging the entire generation by the select few I had come into contact with. I have done that before, in different situations. I have to admit that within my life, I have dealt with my own sexism. I have been sexist against both men and women...feeling as if men were all emotionless, sex-hungry drones and women were all baby crazy emotional rollercoasters. I've never truly fit in with either group. I have also been somewhat prejudice against my own race. There are racist white people as there as non-racist whites or any other race, but growing up in a predominantly white area, I received my fair share of experience with both types, and have picked up a bit of resentfulness toward white racists, although personally I have been a victim of racism by both black and Hispanic people. Fair? No. Hypocritical? Yes. But that's the way it is.

How does this relate to rudeness in people? Well, let me tell you a bit about my personal experiences when going to shop or out to eat in public. My husband and I are the type of people who open doors for others out of respect for our fellow human, regardless of whether or not they are walking with assistance or perfectly healthy. Throughout the years of sharing this hobby together we have come across our fair share of people who simply don't acknowledge us as they walk through the door and go about their way. Within five years, if my memory serves me correctly, we have come across a few dozens people that have been this inhumanly rude. All but one were older generations.

The fact that this ticks me off is no new thing. Just recently, however, it was dug out and refreshed in my mind as my husband and I were eating at a cafe. While sitting there, we watched as an older couple, the man in a walker, made their way to the door to exit the cafe. Two young teen girls passed them, then walked through the door that the elderly woman held open without a word. They left, leaving the elderly woman holding the door for her physically challenged husband. My reaction wasn't one of disgust...sure, it was enormously rude and borderline cruel of the teens to walk through a door without a word of thanks, especially one being held by a very old woman and for her handicapped husband. My reaction, instead, was surprise. Shock, even! I had only witnessed such rudeness from older generations before, in all my years of sitting back and watching people, silently studying for my own knowledge and benefit. Finally, two people added to the highly miniscule percentage of young people who are intensely rude, compared to the vast majority of middle aged to elderly generations that have to mark "Rudeness" as their career on their yearly taxes.

Am I bragging? No. Not one person has the right nor the excuse to be so rude, whether they are two years old or three hundred, for all I care. I don't care what you've been through, what your day has been like, who your father is, or what you ate for breakfast, there is NO excuse to be rude and thoughtless toward your fellow human. However, it makes me so much angrier to see middle aged to elderly people being rude. Why?

They should know better. A person has lived eighty years on this earth and still isn't smart enough to understand how to treat people? Acknowledge people? Appreciate random and unnecessary acts of stranger kindness? Like I said, I don't care what you've been through, there is no reason to take out your miserable life on another person. Personally, I have been through major successes and major failures, I have been THE subject of torment by hundreds of kids per day in a middle school setting for over a year to the breaking point, I have lost loved ones, I have been disappointed and caused disappointment, I have seen the fine line between being alive and having your life taken away, I have seen and fought injustice, at times winning but most of the time losing, and I have felt the extreme guilt over the death of a loved one for seven years straight. In twenty-one years...let me tell you something...that is one hell of a lot. I know what it is like to lose faith in myself. I know what it feels like to lose faith in loved ones or even humanity. I know what it feels like to beg God to let me just die. I have gone through a point in my life where I lost my faith and wanted nothing more than to just dissipate into thin air and be forgotten. I have felt heartbreak. I have felt completely and totally alone. But out of all of that...

...I still treat people well. Better than well, even. I go out of my way to strike up conversations with strangers. I go out of my way to make things easier on people. I'll spend a few minutes while at the grocery store to clean up carts in the parking lot because I feel for the employee who has to put them away and because I want to clean up the mess that the other thoughtless people have left. I have tipped up to 50% on a restaurant bill because I know that waiter or waitress probably needs the money more than me. I'll let people cut in line, I'll give people my coupons, my time, my sympathy, and my ear. And I've lived on this earth only one fourth of what I hope to. I care for strangers.

I guess there is really no way to crack into the stubborn head of most of these people and teach them something they couldn't learn in multiple decades, but I sure wish I could. I wish I could teach them compassion. I wish I could prove to them that listening to and caring for one stranger every once in awhile teaches you worlds of information, gives you experience you could never achieve yourself. Not to mention it gives them comfort and someone to talk to.

Technically, I could hold onto pride here and say that I'm so intelligent that I've learned in twenty years what most don't learn in eighty. But I don't want to be technical. I don't want to be the only one who has a mind and a heart. I don't want to live with the fact that most people simply don't care about others. However, I've lived through depression, the death and sickness of loved ones, complete loneliness and abandonment, and hopelessness of the human race. Certainly, I can continue being the only one with a conscience, and maybe, just maybe, show others how to gain one.