Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
GRATITUDE
WHAT THIS MEANS
Busyness is the standard excuse for brusqueness and it does not hold up, because courtesy takes seconds. A greeting, a thank you, the small acknowledgement that the person in front of you is a person: none of these are what makes a day overfull. What makes people short with each other is usually agitation rather than an actual shortage of time.
When you notice yourself clipping words to save a moment, spend the moment. Reply to the message properly rather than in three characters. Whatever you are hurrying towards will not be reached appreciably sooner, and the person will remember which version of you they got.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
Whom do you rush past because you have decided you are busy?
MORE IN TRUST, LOYALTY & RELATIONSHIPS
- Love and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation.
- The gift, to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me, correspondent to my flowing unto him.
- A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.