Has the world turned upside down?
She held the umbrella high above her head but was not sheltering herself. Instead, she was holding the umbrella over the man walking slightly ahead of her with arms somewhat crossed over his chest. And she appears to be in the advanced stage of her pregnancy!
The two relatively well-dressed young men walked into the lift, still deeply engaged in their conversation with each other. They just walked past other people waiting patiently outside the lift. And didn’t even bother to wait for the six of us still trying to get out of the lift!
Another young man walked briskly through the glass doors entrance of the bank ‘compelling’ the middle-aged woman to hold the glass door open for him. He didn’t even acknowledge her, let alone say “thank you”!
Call me a prude or someone with some old-fashioned views but I always thought that it’s only “right” for a man to be the one holding the umbrella over the woman. Allow others to come out of the lift first before rushing into it. And aren’t men supposed to hold the doors open for women and children?
Was I left behind, whilst technology advanced? Did women “equality” surge way ahead to the forefront of everything else and there’s no longer a need for chivalry or just common courtesy? Perhaps it is just a generational gap?
Values impact our perception of the things around us. It changes and dictates how we process information. Like a filter before our eyes, we end up seeing things not as they are but as we see them, through the different “value filters” we wear. These views, in turn, influence our thoughts and feelings – which then shape our actions.
If we begin to understand that every one of us are influenced by our own unconscious “value filters”, and that each of our filters are uniquely formed as a result of our past – experience, upbringing, culture – we may just be able to empathise better, be slower to judge and be more willing to extend grace. And then, just maybe, we will all get along a little better everyday.
By FC Law, The EQ Edge
Copyright Reserved. November 2014.
www.theeqedge.com