So I am currently on the bus on my way home for the weekend but I just had a thought so I thought I would write it down.
I was thinking about how normally, when I am walking to class, and probably running late teehee, I get frustrated when the big old bus is trucking down the road preventing me from crossing. From my perspective as a pedestrian, I feel like the buses and cars and bicyclists are a hassle and essentially something "in my way."
However, at the moment, I am put in the opposite position, and, hoping to not get home too too late in the evening, the pedestrians preventing the bus from going forward are more of an annoyance to me.
It's kind of like when you are a customer at a restaurant and you think of the customer being always right, so even if you give the worker a hard time or give them a very precise order or instructions or complain about the little mistakes they make, you justify yourself by saying "Well that's their job," or something of that nature.
But then if YOU are the worker or employee and you receive a customer like explained above, you might become frustrated or feel that they are being far too picky and rude and you might be tempted to "spit intheir food" or something outrageous like that. You'll justify yourself by saying that you dont deserve that kind of treatment because youre already working very hard and dont need any complications.
So I guess in a sense just seeing things from our own perspectives causes us to be somewhat selfish in our view of certain situations.
I think that respect is a two way street, and that if you are given it you should give it. If more people thought about their decisions considering other peoples' points of view more often instead of living in their own close minded world then the world would be a better place. I know this is kind of a generally accepted idea but in reality we dont often realize when we are being selfish or not considering other peoples' situations.
I think maybe it is important to do little things like thanking the person who serves you at a restaurant or smiling at the people who you pass on the street or having patience for the pedestrians walking across the street.
because they are also going somewhere. Just because you dont know what is going on in their life doesnt mean nothing is. In the same way, just because you may not appreciate one aspect of life doesnt mean someone else doesnt. So you should respect it regardless.
For example, yesterday I was talking to my roommate and she was telling me how a lot of Art majors in her class were talking about art museums and how much meaning they have and how important they are to society and how interesting they are and I think at one point she referred to them as "real museums" unlike, she said, science or history museums that have no merit. Now this pissed off my roommate, being an environmental science major with a lot of interest interest in science in general.
To this girl, from her perspective which focused on what she was interested in, science and history were not important or worthy of praise or whatever. But to my roommate it is her MAJOR for crying out loud, what she is investing her life into.
So I think it is extremely unfair to say that just because something isn't important to YOU that it is not important at ALL.
I think if more people looked at things and ideas with the mindset of "this may not have meaning to me but I appreciate that it may have meaning to SOMEONE", then society would most likely be a more accepting and open minded body.
it's so easy to judge things with the thought that they are not beautiful or worth something or important just because of your own taste and opinions but oftentimes things are beautiful nonetheless, regardless of if anyone at all appreciates them as beautiful.
for example with music, alot of times people think of music as being "good" or "bad" depending on their taste instead of considering that for a certain taste it may be wonderful but for another it may be terrible. Like some people think that country music is "bad music" when in fact there is good country and bad country, and said good country could be bad country to someone else.
instead of looking at things or ideas or art or ANYTHING with the mindset of "oh I dont like this therefore it is bad or wrong" shouldnt we be considering that it may be right to some people or in some sense but just not in our own life?
if someone's life was given inspiration and meaning by the influence of miley cyrus then is miley cyrus really "bad" pop culture? Or if someone's devotion to a really popular talented musical group led to antisocial behavior and depression then are they still a great group?
I think most things in life are this way: there is no right or wrong and we should respect all opinions for that reason.
Sorry for the unnecessarily long post!
