The LW strikes me as someone who has spent a lot of time following the rules. Whose rules? The ones he inherited from whoever he inherited them from. He sounds resentful of the people who go around doing whatever they want, because they're not following the rules, and maybe he envies their freedom.

At least, this is what I see in myself when I've had it with the idiots surrounding me. They just do whatever the hell they want, no regard for anyone else, and I've spent all these years putting other people's wants ahead of my own, and I deserve someone putting my wants ahead of theirs! But it doesn't work that way. Your good behavior doesn't mean anyone's obligated to do, be, say anything for you. It just means you were good, and if you resent the hell out of people you think aren't being good, maybe you should try being bad.

I liked Cary's advice today.

One thing I would also stress is that these human beings who annoy you so badly are individuals, not abstract projections of How Bad The Modern World Is. When you get into the habit of focusing on these annoyances, it's too easy to see your fellow humans as symbols instead of people: symbols of poor education, or symbols of modern rudeness, or symbols of bad parenthood. The danger is that this kind of thinking leads to disconnection and lack of empathy, which can have profound implications on how you interact with the world around you. The letter writer doesn't mention how civil s/he is to others, which I think is more important than how civil people are being to you (or each other).

These people don't know you, and they don't care. I don't mean that in the it-takes-a-village sense - after all, I don't think that we should be completely unconcerned about other people and the impact we are having on them - but in the sense that these people are busy living their own lives. As much as it may seem like it sometimes, the person going slow in the fast lane (which, incidentally, is a pet peeve of mine) is not doing it deliberately to piss you off. Maybe that poor cashier who neglected to thank you for your purchase was just insulted by a previous customer for saying, "Have a nice day." Life is not a conspiracy against you. No one out there has made it their life's work to make you, personally, miserable. Empathy is a good thing.

"Not suffering fools" isn't always something to be pround of, because who determines who is really the fool in this scenario?

Your advice made my whole day, pretty much.

jf

While I don't consider myself a Christian per se, I would find both the LW and Cary to be helped by the advice to tend to the plank in one own's eye before tending to the speck in others' eyes. As someone who struggles with misanthropia daily, I find the best cure to be focusing on self-improvement and leading by example, and by spending less time thinking about the million billion trillion things about other people that tend to tick me off.

In the Austin paper recently, a soldier recently returned from Iraq was quoted as saying 'It's hard to look at Americans and not say, "you are fat, lazy and have no idea what you have." The very first time I go into McDonald's and hear someone complaining that there isn't enough ice in their Coke, I'm going to punch them in the face.'

While he may have a point, that guy also needs to chill out. Most people do the best with the resouces they have at the time, and punching, shooting, complaining, or otherwise losing patience is not going to improve the situation and may in fact make it a great deal worse.

Perehaps we can simply look at rude behavior as providing us an exercise in generosity and forgiveness.

Cary's advice is usually helpful. I usually find Cary's advice comforting. However, I take little comfort in his advice this time.

I think my bleeding heart has finally bled dry and I no longer understand why everyone must tolerate unremitting boorish behavior. Generally, people seem to be rude and inconsiderate. Driving 40mph shows a total lack of consideration for other drivers. Talking on one's cell phone constantly and loundly is loutish, to say the least. People blocking aisles with their shopping carts and thousand children at a grocery store is rather hostile.

I suppose there is no good advice to deal with this omnipotent problem. If you politely ask someone to remove their baseball cap in a formal restaurant, they smirk and swear at you. Manners have gone by the wayside. I can't shrug off this adversarial feeling I have towards everyone around me.

All I can do is sympathise with the LW and bite my tongue when my frustration flares up. I'm sorry LW; I just don't think there is much hope. Regardless, I don't feel like I have to approve of it and join the ranks of the uncouth.

I understand the frustration, and sometimes feel it myself, but have learned to not let it get me all steamed up.

Maybe it's because I'm in the news business, but I read every day about people who have done just about everything humanly possible to ruin their lives, and the lives of people around them, and maybe it's because I'm getting older, more curmudgeonly or something, but I find it harder to work up sympathy. I feel sorry still for the people who lose their jobs to corporate America's greed, and feel even sorrier for those who have to ask for charity and get condescended to and patronized by the slime that run the United Way and other pseudo-helping agencies, who mainly see the misfortune of others as a resume item for their next step up the corporate ladder.

But I lose patience with the people with the "drug problems" who turn up in the police blotter, the ones who are "bi-polar" whenever they rob a store or mug a senior citizen, the "cries for help" that involve mayhem and even those who have spent their lives whining about their lack of opportunity but haven't even taken the first steps to changing their plight, preferring to sit and pour out their tales of woe to gullible reporters.

I was once one of them (OK, no criminal record), and decided to change my life for the better. It took years, but I can look back on some solid accomplishments and successes. I used to think I could teach others about how to make their lives better, but decided that life was something you have to figure out on your own. Some people never do.

Yes, there are some people out there who are pains in the butt. I include the people who board airliners with those wheeled bags and drag them down the narrow aisle of a plane, and then try to stuff it in the overhead; the woman on a flight I took who tottered onto the plane in high-heeled sandals with spike heels (she could barely walk) dragging one of those bags, with another lashed to it and falling off, and decided to try to disembark from the rear of the plane, but then discovered that there was an air stair and no jetway, and then tottered back, knocking people out of her way.

But I figure things could be a heck of a lot worse. There's so much good I see: my cats, the house, the lawn I love to take care of, the job that's still interesting and so much more.

The letter writer should just lighten up.

Vincent F. Safuto