Friday, August 11, 2017

Be a gentleman (or a lady)

Can you live with people who speak harshly to you? 

I have virtually never spoken (much less shouted) harshly or angrily to anybody. I consider it uncivilized, uncool, ungentlemanlike, primitive, and counter-productive. 

And I don't tolerate if people do it to me. (That is very rare, fortunately.) Correction: if they change their mind and apologizes, I can forgive them. But I neither will or can live with anybody who treats me like a dog. (Actually even dogs shouldn't be treated like that.) 

===

It's the thing I find very disappointing about a person like the late Steve Jobs (and he was far from unique). He clearly found it to be an acceptable way of dealing with people. I simply don't understand that. How can you be an educated person of sophisticated taste and a high post, and yet regularly treat other people in ways that are on the level of mindless animals, generating fear and intimidated or offended people around you? How can an educated person live with himself not being a gentleman? 

2 comments:

Laurie said...

It is not a sin to be angry, and true, it is hard to communicate "kindly" when someone judges us, or when someone we know and care about acts a bit thoughtless toward us. Then, hopefully, there is forgiveness. But too many are raised to bottle up all feelings, and stuff them down, and they come out in other ways, through arrogance, or through repression, or some other form of denial of life. Historically, women have been trained to be "nice," certainly not always an
empowering thing when there is abuse. Tricky topic, but love, God, within us will always rule the day. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall know mercy."

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

I hear you.