People watching is a social science hobby that I spend quite a bit of my time engaging in. Observing people in recent times, some of the little things I see shows that there some fine redeeming human values which seems to be at loss these days. I am quite sure a good number of you would have observed these things as well.![1453956311834[1]](https://acookingpotandtwistedtales.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/14539563118341.jpg)
Two days ago, I watched an elderly lady who was counting her steps struggle with the few things that she had and a couple of the items fell from her hands.
She paused briefly, bending gingerly to try and gather them and from my observation, she probably has Arthritis.
My natural instinct was to run up and help her, unfortunately my distance was a little far off to offer immediate assistance.
Meanwhile, two young men, probably in their mid-to-late twenties stood two steps away from this lady, puffing away on their cigarettes and not one of them bothered to render a helping hand to a woman who looked old enough to be their mother.
For all you know, they were probably busy videoing her difficulty for their YouTube Channel, which seems to be the new thing these days.
People would rather spend time shooting a video of a dying man in an accident instead of figuring out how to help.
I honestly had to curb my desire to make my way over and give them a talk or two about chivalry, they might not take it well.
However, I gave them a thorough scolding in my head 😉 and reminded myself that I have to keep teaching my boys how to be gentlemen.
By extending a hand of fellowship or help no matter how little to those around us who need it, we can never go wrong. We are actually not just helping others, but staying in touch with our humanity.
These are some little nuggets of quotes that you might wish to spend a couple of seconds on.
‘Instruction in youth, is like engraving in stone.’ African Proverb
‘The old woman looks after the child to grow its teeth and the young one in turn looks after the old woman when she loses her teeth.’ African Proverb
‘We rise by lifting others.’ Robert Ingersoll
Several dear bloggers have invited me for quote challenges and each day, the invitation increases by a notch.
I don’t like to let these things trail for so long, but I also don’t like to just toss quotes out there with nothing to say about them.
I try to look at the things that I observe around me and let them serve as lessons or inspirations for my thoughts.
I would like to thank Sepultura and That Little Voice for their generous invitation extended to me, to participate in the quotes challenge and would like to invite the following bloggers below to take up the quote baton and run with it.
No pressures at all. Just go with it if you wish to.
The Little Rules are:
- Post three consecutive days.
- You can pick one or three quotes per day.
- Challenge three different bloggers per day
My regards,
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Those men should definitely be ashamed of themselves. My boys know to open doors for others and all of my kids know to say “thank you” when someone else opens one for them. I drives me nuts when someone walks through a door that someone else opened for them and don’t express gratitude!! Teaching kids small acts of kindness teaches them to get of out of their own bubble so that they realize that other people matter as much as they do.
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Just right Tasha and because you care. They won’t forget those things that you inculcate in them. Some of the videos and stuff making the rounds with children behaving so badly truly horrifies me. It simply shows that some people let go of these young ones training early on.
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I know, it can be down right shocking at times to say the least. Especially when the youngin’s are using harsh language.
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It’s just worrying!
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People hardly care about one another these days. They just derive entertainment from each other. It’s sad.
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Truly sad Sonia
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It is such a shame that people are no longer willing to try and lend a hand. It is so alien to me to just stand by and do nothing if someone is in need of help. Thankfully though, there are still a few decent people left!
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Judy, it is really worrying at the way values just seem to decline, but like you rightly said, thankfully there are still some decent humans left.
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I would’ve told them they were a bunch of rude fuckers. (sorry, but I would have)
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I can see you bristling in annoyance. It was just sad to watch the society decline in good manners.
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I continue to see us decline as a society and I do blame social media for part of it. I also believe that so many family units are broken that we are at a point of no return. Kids today are no longer learning manners or how to respect others. Question is…where do we go from here?
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It’s truly a very, very bad trend. I think parents just have to re-plot the training and not letting the children grow up by themselves without guidance. It seems as if the social media now does the educating for parents. We have to try.
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Men just aren’t men these days. And people are not quick to help but will record anything and post it on Facebook or somewhere.
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It’s just a tiresome and bad trend! We seem to have lost the plot somewhere.
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Exactly!
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I’m not sure I would have been able to curb my urge to go up and yank them by their ears and give them a piece of my mind — after I helped the lady myself.
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I am really learning to restrain myself from tackling such uncouth youth. My husband thinks that I am too enthusiastic and that such ill-mannered men would not appreciate my effrontery. I think that parents need to put in more effort in the social skills development of their offspring. The World will definitely be better for it.
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This makes me think, too, of a comment I read today that people who come across an accident or witness a crime are so busy taking pictures that nobody thinks to help the victims.
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Very unfortunate development!
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It is sad what society looks like in regards to manners and caring. An incident last year stayed with me and everytime I think about it, I sigh. A few of us on a bus came upon a man laying on the road, a bus just hit him. Whilst one lady was trying to calm the distraught driver, there a few young men on the side laughing and pointing, one lady got the bus I was on, went directly to the body snapping photos along with some others (none were journalists). What ticked me off the most was one young guy who used his feet to sort off shrug the man lying motionless on the road. I do not know if he survived, I did not hear of the incident on the news and the people I followed up with could not track down who he was. Parents really need to teach phone manners to their children, so hopefully the crop of young ones growing up are more sensitive to human beings in drastic cases as such.
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Yikes! That sounds so inhumane and abysmal. It’s really a sickening trend that we need to get in hand before it gets too late to do anything.
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It was very sickening and it still feels that way. It shook me.
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I can just imagine. Better not imagined
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