We Don't Mean It but We're All Big Jerks

Not all of us can be saints. In fact, I think we're all jerks and we don't even realize how bad we are until we sit back and reflect on ourselves. We'll notice that we display an alarming amount of ill-mannered behaviour towards our fellow citizens.

I ask myself how this came about and I can only come to some general reasons, but really, we can't blame anyone but ourselves. It would be childish to give total blame of our failings on circumstances or people rather than taking the high road and making a change in ourselves.

The reason why I came up with this topic is because there were a bunch of situations that had happened to me recently that I thought were utterly rude. One in particular was a tow truck parking his car in front of my laneway casually doing his paperwork. I was in a rush to get out to meet some people and he refused to move until he finished his paperwork. I obviously got angry because you shouldn't be allowed to park in front of someone's laneway blocking their exit.

I reflected on this and realized that yes, he was a jerk, and in turn I become one as well. We technically didn't want to be jerks to each other, but we were because of our own conveniences. We are self-preserving animals. We will fight to get what's ours and protect our loved ones at all costs. With this in mind, it sort of made more sense why we're all jerks.

As much as we call ourselves multitaskers, we are definitely not multitaskers. When we're doing an action, we're focused on what we have to do. When the quickest or most efficient route or method comes to our head, we generally take it, not realizing what the circumstances are. There are a few people that have gotten used to doing certain things that it becomes old hat. In this case, they may plan ahead because of their past experiences to know what they did right and wrong.

For many people, when they do a task, it's often their first time. People can get overwhelmed very quickly to new things. That added stress can cause a lot of bad behaviour.

This bad behaviour can be further exacerbated when they are actually doing the task as they have very little confidence in doing it and they're unsure if things will go the way they want. Of course they're going to take shortcuts when they can. Why else do people cut in line? Why would someone stop in the middle of the road to let someone out of the car? It's the easiest, most convenient way of doing things in their head. When they're doing it, they don't immediately think of the consequences of their actions. They're not thinking of others when they're doing these things.

Usually when they understand the consequences, they alter their plans and do things in a different way. If you don't and continue to do the most effective route without worry of consequence, then you just might be a sociopath. Sociopaths in my opinion are the ultimate jerks. They exist in the millions and they don't care what you think about them, so their actions will never change. The only way for us to stop them is for us to get them to go to jail for a major slip up.

Yes we're all jerks at one time until we start learning the consequences of our actions. I know we can't blame anyone but ourselves for our bad manners but I had some ideas how these behaviours started to become more popular as of lately.

The size of our population I think is a big factor. I think that because we have so many people it becomes a huge family. If you've ever been in a big family, you'll be familiar with the term "you have to fend for yourself." Your brothers and sisters will take the good pieces if you don't get to them first. So this becomes a major competition that inadvertently happens in the world.

It doesn't help that our world now is faster and more efficient than ever. This further exacerbates our fear of losing out. We have to compete with everyone else so we continue to take the most efficient and effective route that we can find to whatever we're doing.

We also have less time for our own reflection. We can't just sit back and realize what we did was wrong. Once we finish one task, we're on to the next. It's hard to think about others when we're constantly in a rush to accomplish our own tasks and in turn think about ourselves.

These are excuses though. We should be better people and understand what we're doing is wrong. Taking the time to understand our actions is something that I think all of us should do to make ourselves better people. Being a jerk to someone has a horrible ripple effect that we don't need. Those ripples can become waves and that will make living on this planet less tolerable. So let's fine some time for ourselves and make our world a better place.