My starting point for this liberation of the soul is honesty and boldness. I've decided in life (that's a phrase you will probably hear again), that some people get away with too much. I don't mean petty crime or the people evading a life sentence for killing a man or two, but the softer imprint of that, the people who irritate and disturb your peace intentionally or out of habit and never really change because they think it's OK or socially acceptable. So think of it as constructive criticism and let me lay out for you what I mean.
A demonstrable case is the unpleasant individuals (mostly men I have to say, and thankfully a few) who sit next to you on the tube and invade your personal space. I think the majority of us have experienced this: the man lying on his seat with his legs splayed out so wide that it's forcing yours to weld together; elbows protruding so far out on the arm rest that you start turning the pages of the newspaper as if your elbow grew out of your ribcage, restricted by the cramped space you have been compelled to manoeuver within. The majority of us, me included in the past, would have tolerated this. But what if we chose not to?
Is our reluctant reticence in public just an expression of our consideration for the feelings of others who we don't know, despite the likelihood that the person beside us is both selfish and insolent? And if so, is the decision to endure it a rational one or simply a cowardly act on our part? While of course we cannot neglect the issue of safety as a consideration, the probability that the person sitting next to us is a tantrum thrower or violent personality is likely to be quite low. Therefore I'm heavily leaning towards the latter proposal - the basis of which may be much more fundamental and start to explain why we find these situations particularly difficult.
There is something very English, reserved and dare I say slightly repressed in what we consider to be proper social etiquette of polite, civilised, and perhaps educated urban dwellers in what is unsuitably a crowded, manic, and mishmash of a city such as London. We go about our daily lives on public transport, in supermarkets, on the road, moving as entities separated by personal experiences, the people in our lives and above all, a blunt unfamiliarity. To put it more simply, we are scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The momentum of modern city life however jostles us towards each other so often that we are forced to engage with strangers, albeit transiently. Even so, instead of embracing this reoccurence, we'd rather mitigate or shorten the encounter, much less go onto confront any potentially uncomfortable or awkward situations. So I propose that while we judge, hiss and suffer discreetly at the rudeness of those who break the codes of social propriety, we are more afraid of provoking a feeling in a stranger, because after all, we don't know them even a little bit and it's more engagement than we had bargained for on that particular day.
Whether there is much more complexity to it, I have come to realise that we don't have to conform to whatever social restraints are on show. I have embraced the new option of following my instinct and letting the perpetrator know in a completely non-malicious and polite way, the issue they are causing me to agonise over. The last two times I found myself in this situation I convinced myself to act on them by thinking 1) I paid £15 for this ticket which is very expensive and 2) Trust your feelings as long as you're not bruising anyone. I then took a deep breath, shouted action in my head and said "could you move your arm please". And as I had rightly suspected, on both occasions my next door sitter unwillingly moves their arm an inch, and adopts a grunting expression which clearly proves to me that they are inconsiderate and aren't willing to repent as you or I would have done -"Oh I'm so sorry" at least. My comments obviously failed to make a deep impact, but if compounded by the same feedback from others in the future, he/she may eventually learn to change. Try it out, but ensure you judge well and don't get injured in the process; and you never know, you may even receive an apology, or just a bit more room to relax and read your book. ;)
A demonstrable case is the unpleasant individuals (mostly men I have to say, and thankfully a few) who sit next to you on the tube and invade your personal space. I think the majority of us have experienced this: the man lying on his seat with his legs splayed out so wide that it's forcing yours to weld together; elbows protruding so far out on the arm rest that you start turning the pages of the newspaper as if your elbow grew out of your ribcage, restricted by the cramped space you have been compelled to manoeuver within. The majority of us, me included in the past, would have tolerated this. But what if we chose not to?
Is our reluctant reticence in public just an expression of our consideration for the feelings of others who we don't know, despite the likelihood that the person beside us is both selfish and insolent? And if so, is the decision to endure it a rational one or simply a cowardly act on our part? While of course we cannot neglect the issue of safety as a consideration, the probability that the person sitting next to us is a tantrum thrower or violent personality is likely to be quite low. Therefore I'm heavily leaning towards the latter proposal - the basis of which may be much more fundamental and start to explain why we find these situations particularly difficult.
There is something very English, reserved and dare I say slightly repressed in what we consider to be proper social etiquette of polite, civilised, and perhaps educated urban dwellers in what is unsuitably a crowded, manic, and mishmash of a city such as London. We go about our daily lives on public transport, in supermarkets, on the road, moving as entities separated by personal experiences, the people in our lives and above all, a blunt unfamiliarity. To put it more simply, we are scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The momentum of modern city life however jostles us towards each other so often that we are forced to engage with strangers, albeit transiently. Even so, instead of embracing this reoccurence, we'd rather mitigate or shorten the encounter, much less go onto confront any potentially uncomfortable or awkward situations. So I propose that while we judge, hiss and suffer discreetly at the rudeness of those who break the codes of social propriety, we are more afraid of provoking a feeling in a stranger, because after all, we don't know them even a little bit and it's more engagement than we had bargained for on that particular day.
Whether there is much more complexity to it, I have come to realise that we don't have to conform to whatever social restraints are on show. I have embraced the new option of following my instinct and letting the perpetrator know in a completely non-malicious and polite way, the issue they are causing me to agonise over. The last two times I found myself in this situation I convinced myself to act on them by thinking 1) I paid £15 for this ticket which is very expensive and 2) Trust your feelings as long as you're not bruising anyone. I then took a deep breath, shouted action in my head and said "could you move your arm please". And as I had rightly suspected, on both occasions my next door sitter unwillingly moves their arm an inch, and adopts a grunting expression which clearly proves to me that they are inconsiderate and aren't willing to repent as you or I would have done -"Oh I'm so sorry" at least. My comments obviously failed to make a deep impact, but if compounded by the same feedback from others in the future, he/she may eventually learn to change. Try it out, but ensure you judge well and don't get injured in the process; and you never know, you may even receive an apology, or just a bit more room to relax and read your book. ;)
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