Be nice but not too nice. Advice on our manners....

Many days I feel the world is no longer a nice place. 

I can only talk for my home city of Sydney. 

Society is sadly becoming impersonal, full of selfish self centred or self focused people.

This is a polite way of saying - Arseholes . No wonder there's an epidemic of depression. 

People think they'll find solace in a pill that just numbs their half dead souls but, if you want 

to be happy you have to be nice to people, because what we give out is what we get back.

What was once considered civil behaviour has become just another commodity, that's traded for something else or bartered along the way in this competitive commercial environment.  Even though it's fake, shopping or spending money is the fast way to get strangers to be nice to you. 

Employees have to be polite to keep their jobs. Behaviour is economically modified. Then if you see that staff elsewhere they won't acknowledge, or they look straight through you. 

What ever happened to the days when people used to pass each other on the street and smile? 

If you do that now, people think you're weird or you may want something so they react with anxiety.

Too many people in Sydney look like they've sucked on a sour lemon, or sat on something painful.

In Australia we have this deep sense of entitlement. It comes from the loose welfare state. 

Ironically happiness is not our responsibility anymore, it's someone else's ! 

The wealthy are begrudged by high taxes, the have nots leech of the system, so people 

feel it's up to the government to pick up the social pieces, but politicians aren't priests. 

Trying to be nice is draining when I'm faced with zombies who's only love is their iPhone. 

Young people are the worse contenders. Why would they even think of being nice when 

everyone around them is either invisible or a nuisance? My words to them is, just keep 

ignoring everyone in the physical world, hug your iPad when you're lonely. 

Maybe people are so lost in technology, they've got not social skills. I believe empathy and 

compassion is lost in this emerging generation. I've tried to do the pep talks with younger people, 

but they just look at me like they're made of hollow wood... Well actually that's a compliment 

cause wood is a natural product.... They're made of plastic !!! 

With ageing manners become important. 

Life now is vision after vision after vision on Instagram. Technology stifled youths ability to develop 

deeper real life connections. The computers may be on but the users are shut down. 

Call me cynical but I've discovered many people are only nice if they want something, 

otherwise distant or dismissive. We're tinged with schizophrenia. 

Being too nice also makes us vulnerable to be taken advantage of by the not so nice. 

People complain they have no friends , but they've missed so many tiny chances in their 

day to day lives, busy looking at fake profiles online. 

I can't believe how much energy people put into avoiding each other. They like to ignore, but hate being ignored ! It's a power trip which tells us how insecure and fragile they are. 

It's self defeating or just plain stupid being endlessly nice to the inconsiderate. 

The best revenge on the rude is to nicely ignore them. 

No More Eye Contact - Welcome to The New Impersonal Society.

Eye contact....

There's less and less of it. Have you noticed ? Is this defence mechanism due to over population ? 

Last year in London I was cramped on those crowded tubes, everyone was automatically avoiding

eye contact. I guess this is a way of giving each other psychic space. 

Our  attention has gone from others people  to be zapped by technology, iPhones, iPads , tablets. 

These distractions have come at a social cost, in particular to young people who look tasered. 

I remember as a child, one of our greatest fears of the future was being Zombies, worried we 

would be inserted with a computer chip under our skin, to be controlled by computers. 

Hello, that's exactly what's we've volunteered to do. 

More and more people are almost agressively ignoring eachother. What ever happened to the days when there was this sense of belonging when we acknowledged eachother, smiled , said hello to total strangers , enjoyed the sense of creating a feeling of connection through constant small acts of niceness. This was the nurturing eggs which bonded society. 

It seems now we only make eye contact when we need or have to, mostly in business, work, shops or restaurants when we are paid to or paying for ....the over focus on consumerism is leading to a lack

of compassion on a subtle level. Consumption is about me, compassion is about we. 

I believe a lack of eye contact compromises our natural perception or intuition. If we avoid eye contact, how do we go deeper into the window of ones soul ? we need to asses the other persons  intentions or motivations to protect ourselves . It's not just about filling a multiple choice selection online to determine decisions . I don't trust people who can not make deep eye contact for at least a few seconds, I feel wary, it's a warning  they are not sincere. 

Personally it's most upsetting to see how offended people are if you even look at them at all , for more than a split second. This age of being overly self focused has contributed to selfishness, social isolation and depression, inparticular  in younger people who in my experience 

are only adorable when they want something. 

So get over it , start looking at eachother and for heavens sake smile then say hello !!!