On politeness

I have been thinking a fair bit about how a little politeness goes a long way. Once you think about it, the revelation is not really extraordinary; it is something we have known or should have known all along. What then prevents us from being polite all the time, and causes us to try the "Do you know who I am?" approach.

I suspect it is our ego's need to feel important, and it is this need that gets us into trouble more often than not. It would be fair to reason that at least some of the time, our need to feel important will be at odds with the other parties need to feel important. More often than not, our demeanour works hard against our best interests rather than for them.

Imagine a person trying to check in for a flight that has been over-booked for some reason. The one person in the world who could perhaps help you get on that flight is the person behind the check-in counter at the airport. That is also the person that people try to berate when they are informed that they might not be accommodated on the flight. When the person behind the counter has some discretion on who to let on board; there should be no prizes for guessing that he or she would be likely to rule in favour of the polite person. Yet we find it easy to be rude to people who provide us with a service such as at an airport or at a hotel or at a restaurant. Interestingly, when the traffic cop stops us, most of us choose to be polite, unless of course we happen to live in Delhi where it would be sign of weakness to show politeness - Tu jaanta hain main kaun hoon?

Here is an algorithm I have just figured out that would lead to be more polite: Transact with every person we meet as if that person were in the position of power.

I realize that this is not a new discovery, for it is exactly what our parents and grandparents have tried to tell us: "It is nice to be important. But it is more important to be nice." Perhaps we will find this wisdom easier to inculcate into our behaviour when we see the purely selfish interest in doing so.