Common Sense and Courtesy?

When was the last time you listened to the rant before you reacted? What would happen if you actually thought about what you were going to text before you sent it? Imagine what would happen if we were slower to criticize and instead looked for something good to say or choose to be silent! What’s even more unfathomable would be to forgive someone instead of praying that God would fix them assuming that they are the problem and not you or me!

Yesterday I had one of those oops moments. We were in the middle of prepping a house for our painting blitz. I was trimming some overgrown shrubs with thorns when I realized I was about to slice a cable. I quickly pulled back and then realized it was too late. I heard this rather interesting sound from the old big screen T.V. that went from a program to static. The grandma whose house we are going to paint actually did something that impressed me! Very different from the teen who helped and decided to make fun of me and post some off the wall pic of me purposely cutting the cable. She asked me to post something on Facebook and then say LOL!

Imagine what would happen if most people in the midst of silly dumb circumstances would do this LOL instead of picking a fight? My grandma is someone who is always under a lot of stress because of her wild grandsons. I so much want to help her and be a real friend. So I was embarrassed when I had this ‘brain fart’ moment and sliced the cable. The good news was that the cable was still going to the other rooms in the house. I will see her again today and say that LOL isn’t going to fix her cable. I will pay for my mishap and get the cable restored.

As I am writing this post at my Starbucks I overhear two ladies who are complaining about social media and how to control their kid’s use of their phones. Clearly this was something a little beyond their abilities and the fallout was that something might be said on their behalf that wasn’t their choice. I wonder whether some of their friends who also might be techno challenged would do LOL or get upset and text back all in CAPS?

Common courtesy is something that seems to be missing in the DNA makeup of some in the present millennial generation that surrounds me. I watched my grandma whose cable I had sliced end up cleaning up the trimming pile from our shrub work. She had hoped that her wayward grandsons would actually do something instead of making the assumption that she would do it.

Sometimes it takes a mishap to force us to rethink how we approach our view of someone else and make the proactive choice not to react, say something nice instead and choose not to post something on Facebook that shames a friend. As my grandma friend would now say learn to laugh at yourself and the circumstances around you and post LOL!