I am a people watcher. Since I spend a lot of time in airports and hotels and at big meetings around the country and internationally, it gives me something to do to pass the time. I don’t always see things that make me particularly happy with the direction our society and country are going. I see horrible parents being disgustingly permissive in the name of love. I also see them screaming and yelling and belittling their children in the name of discipline. I see bad service that will forever negatively impact the way I think of a company. I see an absence of basic human courtesy, and sometimes out-and-out rudeness. Some of the things I see get worked into my books or my speeches. Some make it onto my social media sites like Facebook or twitter. Some end up in blogs like this one. Most of it just ends up in idle conversation with my family and the handful of friends I have. My boys think I am just a crusty old fart who likes to pick out the worst in human behavior and dismiss much of what I say with “That’s Dad!” I get that, as I thought the same thing at their age about my own dad. My friends usually respond with stories of their own because, like me, they are also crusty old farts. My wife, who hears most of my ramblings, just says “Hmmm, why don’t you go write about that.” Which is code for “Please don’t tell me another story about stupid people.”
However, sometimes I see something that really warms my heart and restores my faith in America. Like the kid with his hat on sideways and his pants down around his butt who saw a little old woman drop her boarding pass and picked it up and ran to catch up with her and then wished her a nice day. That made my day. Or the genuinely nice person who smiles and thanks you like she means it when doing business with you. These are signs that we just might have a shot at turning this mess around.
As I observe all of the things I do I often ask myself, “What happened to us?” I know I have written books about that question and those of you who know me have heard my reasons for the downfall of society. I have blamed bad parenting. Still do. I have blamed the wussification of America. Still do. I have asked that we all hold a mirror up in front of our own face because it is all of our faults. And it is. But the problem still confounds me.
Today, I was in the Chicago airport getting ready to fly to Charlotte. (I know, here I go again! Indulge me.) I fly a lot and am Chairman/Platinum/Grand Poobah on most airlines plus I am fortunate that my clients pay for me to fly up front so I line up at the front when boarding a plane. Therefore, I get to board early, which usually just means that I am on the plane sooner so they can be rude to me longer.
When the announcement that “anyone needing special assistance or a little extra time boarding can board the plane now” was made, the usual people using wheelchairs, walkers and canes — or those who just can’t walk very fast — lined up. I will be there too someday so I have no issue with this practice. But while these folks, all elderly, were making their way to board, a girl about 25 years old with her friend about the same age push their way past those of us waiting to board and past several of the elderly. She walks up to the ticket agent and says, “I have a cast and she’s with me.” The agent never blinked and took their tickets and off they trotted to board the plane. Her cast covered a portion of her hand and ran up to just above her wrist. Her fingers and thumb were completely usable; she was even carrying her purse in that hand. There was no way she needed any extra time boarding because of her “infirmity.” She was abusing the system. I am completely confident that she and her friend saw nothing wrong with this behavior and felt no guilt about rudely stepping in front of people who were older and who seriously needed the extra time. When it was my turn to board, I asked the ticket agent why she let them board since there was obviously nothing wrong with them and they seemed fine running down the jetway in their 4-inch heels. She explained that airline policy says that if someone claims to need extra time, even when it is clear they don’t, you can’t question them. Okay, stupid policy but with our sue-happy society, I get it. I hate it, but I get it. Fault? Where do I start? Parents, society, company policy, entitlement mindset, the litigiousness of people these days . . . the list goes on and on.
And then . . .
On the same flight while I was waiting to board and watching these brainless bimbos scam the boarding process and giggle about it, I observed an old guy. I have reached the point in my life where a good number of folks would call me an old guy but this really was an old guy. He was a scrawny, feisty, little old fart with a VFW hat cocked a little bit to the side like so many of those guys like to wear them. He had his pants pulled up to just below his nipples and had a cane. He was slow moving. He was a guy who should have boarded early. In fact, when one of the ticket agents standing nearby said to him, “Sir, would you like to board now?” he stood a little taller and said, “No thank you. I’m fine to board when it’s my turn.” I loved this guy. He could have boarded and probably should have boarded when the folks who needed extra time did. But he didn’t. I sat on my flight contemplating why he didn’t. You know what I think? Pride. This VFW vet was proud of who he still was and what he could still do. He was also too proud to admit that he needed the extra time because he knew he could board with everyone else and be just fine; after all, it’s not like the line moves all that fast anyway. I also imagine that he saw the others as people who really did need the time and was happy to let them on ahead of him. He didn’t view himself as a victim because of his age and the fact that he walked a little slower or used a cane. But regardless of his reason, it was a reminder of a generation who believes in earning a privilege instead of stealing it. Even when the privilege is just getting on the plane five minutes earlier.
Pride is what we have lost. Are people who park in the disabled parking spot simply because they are fat or lazy or both, proud of themselves for doing that? How about people who cut in front of others, knowing it isn’t their turn? How could they be proud of that? Or something as small as having 19 items in the 15–items-or-less line at the supermarket? Do these folks take pride in screwing over the people who know how to count to 15 and honor the rules? Or how about people who could work, but won’t work? People who stay on welfare or SSI or unemployment when they are perfectly capable of taking a job — are these people proud of themselves? Maybe they are. I can’t say. I hope not. Because when the day comes that all of those scammers outnumber the rest of us and they feel no guilt and are actually proud of themselves for it, we are doomed. Who knows, maybe we are already there.
The lesson: When you do something . . . anything, regardless of how insignificant it may seem at the time, ask yourself this question: “Am I proud of myself?” I hope you can always answer, “Yes, I am.”
Yes, I am!
Good going Larry!! LOVE this post! As a person who deals with those who feel entitled every day, I have to agree. Do we not have shame anymore? I have to ask how people can look in the mirror and like what they see when they refuse to stand on their own two feet, take care of themselves, and show a bit of compassion for their fellow man. Keep them coming!!! If I could hug you, I would!!!
I have noticed the same type of things, a shame isn’t it? Love “Grow a Pair”.
Another classic, Larry, really made me think. For anyone who thought this blog was going to be a flat-out rant, you’ve disappointed them. It’s a thinking piece. I’m going to hear your voice (complete with the cool drawl) in my head for a while, asking “There you go, are you proud of yourself now?”
First off, I am so glad that I have found you Larry! I saw you on Dr. Phil a couple weeks ago and was immediately drawn to you and your straight-forward style. I downloaded a copy of Grow A Pair immediately and finished it in a day. I dabble in writing too and have very much the same views as you. I believe strongly in fairness and doing the right thing and I often call people out for blatantly doing the wrong thing. As I was a writer and editor of the social commentary section of a local magazine for the better part of this year, I was called every name in the book and received the typical threats of physical violence (someone even put a pox in me) from those who disagreed with my opinions. However I got a massive amount of support from those who commended me for “having the balls” to write the things I did. My point is that it is nice to finally have found someone -you- to look up to as a writer and sort of mentor. It’s so refreshing to read the work of someone who “gets it” and is not afraid or too PC to say it like it is.
This post, as with everything I’ve read of yours so far, hits the nail on the head. And I agree with the other posters: it is not simply prude that we’ve lost, it’s the fact that we’ve become complacent living with shame. I often look at the actions of others and wonder how they sleep at night. I was raised to hold very strict morals. Not that I’m a saint by any stretch, but I know right from wrong, and if I fuck up I feel very ashamed and do everything in my power to correct my mistakes. Most people, however, don’t even realize they’ve done something wrong, and so they sleep and they wake and they look at themselves in the mirror and like what they see. It is disheartening to say the least. But you’re right. There is good in society too and it makes my day when I encounter it. Too bad it is a rare occurrence.
Anyway, sorry for the long post. On short I just wanted to thank you. Thank you for having balls Larry, and thanks for inspiring others to grow some or even just be proud of the ones they have, even if the wussies find them highly offensive:)
Anna Wild
The thing is, Larry, I think pride has been twisted around these days to the point where your bimbos were probably “proud” to have beaten the system. It doesn’t seem to be about sacrifice anymore – it’s about winning. Or something like that.
JW Huff, I believe you are right. It horrifies me how much pride people take in “getting away with it.”
Many years ago, I was at a social gathering that included two brothers. Their mother was not present. They were both laughing and reminiscing about how many times they had pulled one over on dear old Mom, getting away with bad behavior through lies and trickery.
A few years later, I heard the two brothers were no longer speaking. One of them had molested the other brother’s teenaged son – his own nephew – thinking he would not be found out. I don’t think he did any jail time. But the unfortunate nephew became the victim of a culture of lies and trickery of which his father was the co-creator.
Great piece, Larry. “Yes, I am”. 🙂
Love your work Larry..could’nt agree more. When are you coming to Australia?…you could teach a lot of folk a thing or two here aswell.
As long as you keep writing, Ill keep reading. Thanks.
Katie H
I’ve never understand why they have the people at the front of the plane get on first. Makes more sense to me to have the people in back board first. But then, I usually get brained at least once by someone getting on last with the largest allowable carryon luggage…
here’s something else to point the finger at and the rot is up here in Canada, too: the education system.
my middle daughter was the victim of a bully several times throughout elementary school. despite having an undiagnosed severe learning disorder (we honestly thought she was … “not that bright”. “bit of a dim bulb”. “keep it simple when you speak to her, okay?”) she *loved* to learn. it took her forEVER to learn a new concept and i really mean that: two days spent chanting “one bunny ear, two bunny ears, cross the ears and into the hole” was enough for me – i bought her velcro shoes after that. a month later – a full month! – we were walking through the park and a rabbit ran by. her whole face lit up and she said “OOOOOH!!! one bunny ear, two bunny ears, cross the ears and into the hole!” and, just like that, she could tie her shoes perfectly.
the first bully was a boy who would invariable seat himself behind her on the bus. he then spent the near-hour bus ride yanking pieces of her hair out, grabbing her pony tail and slamming her head against the back of the seat, stabbing her with pencils so she’d yell and get in trouble from the driver, “accidently” sitting on her lunch bag, and so on. she went to the bus driver who told her “just avoid him, then” even though he’d just yelled at her for getting up from her seat. the stress built up until every morning she would vomit at the thought of going to school and every day after school, she went straight to bed and slept for hours.
when i found out, i went to the school – they can’t help: “it’s outside school hours. talk to the bus driver”. the bus driver wouldn’t help – “i have to drive; i can’t keep staring in the mirror all the time, she’s just gonna have to deal with it”. seeing there was no help from anyone, i went to the school and to my daughter’s class, found out which boy it was (he was at the back of the room), and tore him a new one. the teacher then tried to argue with me – i said “we can have this discussion here or we can take it private”. she elected not to budge so i informed her where she was failing in her duties.
so that was good – no more problems until she graduated up to the next school (grades 4 to 6) and became target of another bully, a girl so violent she was required to have an EA at all times after she slammed a child’s face into the drinking fountain as she passed and knocked out her two front permanent teeth. this girl, whose EA was out front of the school having a smoke, approached my daughter at recess and demanded the skipping rope. my daughter said, rightly, “no, it’s mine for recess – i signed it out”. the girl said “so share it”. my daughter said “it’s not long enough – i have the short one for single jumps but you can have it if you want it”, put it down on the ground, and walked away. the girl then snatched the skipping rope – which wasn’t one of the cloth ones – and lashed my daughter across the face missing her eye by a fraction of an inch.
when i went storming into the office, the principal assumed a sainted mien and said sanctimoniously to my daughter, “now, what did YOU do when she asked to play with you?”
my daughter looked confused and said “i didn’t do anything – i gave her the rope and walked away.”
“that’s right,” the principal said triumphantly. “YOU didn’t make her feel *included*” (as she makes this hugging movement with her arms). looking at me, she said “at this school, we want ALL of our students to feel included.”
i was horrified and i said “there is no reason at all my daughter should be forced to play with a child she’s scared to death of! if you cannot guarantee her safety, then she can’t be here” and we went straight to the classroom to clear out my daughter’s desk and cubbie.
in the meantime, i was fighting with teh school board to get my daughter tested – i told them something is wrong. what is on the report card is NOT my daughter. eventually, they did get her tested and were very embarrassed to admit that she did, in fact, have a profound learning disorder and so sorry, if it’d been caught before grade three she could’ve been helped but as it is, grade ten is far too late. oh – by the way – did you know she has a genius-level IQ? wow… who’da thunk, eh?
that’s what i see all around: this desperate attempt to steamroller everybody into “normal” society – gifted ppl, challenged ppl, violent offenders, creative geniuses, doesn’t matter, it’s “mouth shut, eyes down, do not stand out or there will be repercussions”.
i taught my two older ones and i’m teaching my youngest (who, like my oldest, has asperger’s)
“nobody who was ever anybody was ever normal”.
Love it Larry! Right on!
Yes I am proud of myself,
#1) For not abusing the system
#2) For having a pair and speaking up at the express checkout lane (which I have been doing LONG before the release of Grow A Pair). Don’t get me started on that–it’s one of my biggest pet peeves and when it happens both the offender and cashier hear my rant.
Airports — Could the morons who instituted the stupid fees for checking luggage not foresee a problem in that? Now every idiot traveling in coach wants to save the $25 (or whatever it is) so they carry their crap with them instead of checking it, which of course creates a backlog at the screening gate and overhead bins to fill up quick, hence the reason people want to get on ahead of everyone else. I fly First Class over 90% of the time (especially LA to east cost) so I see the same stuff you pointed out.
Great post, and couldn’t agree more on every single point.
I too have done some thinking around stuff like this, Larry. Your post vibrated many similarities for me. I have seen many be disrespectful to others all in the name of, “I won.” I have to agree with your conclusion. Sad, isn’t it?
Above all, it has reminded me to keep my nose clean! I refuse to allow myself to fall in that trap of trampling on others, just so I can get ahead. Those beliefs are not part of who I am, I also know when one let’s their guard down or become to complacent, they can creep in.
Keep up the great work Larry!
BTW, Grow a pair is on my radar to read next.
OK article, IMO. There was nothing here I hadn’t encountered before, and the bad thing is that the article did not answer, or even attempt to answer, the question posed by it’s main premise: Why have we lost our pride? Some insight into why this state of affairs came to be would have been nice, but you didn’t offer any ideas about it. But I have a couple of thoughts to consider: 1) Pride, as a concept of social behavior, has been pushed to the side of the road, and there are reasons for this. Firstly, there are simply so many people who are needy in America, people who can satisfy little more than their most basic human needs. People need good jobs, and there just aren’t enough to go around. Secondly, these people are aware that there are individuals who make more in one hour than they will likely make in their entire working lives, and are also aware that these people (the super wealthy and politically connected, personified by many of us poor-and-middle-class people by Donald Trump, Jamie Dimon, or Bernie Madoff, but there are others) have largely made their enormous wealth by gaming the system, including outright lying and deceiving others for their benefit. We people of lesser means pay attention to these outrageous and unethical behaviors, and also notice that they seem to display not one bit of shame while doing them. This kind of unethical, me-first, fuck- everyone-else attitude ‘trickles down’ to the unwashed masses, and, over time, many come to believe that this attitude (and the sorry behaviors which spring from it, is normal. If this is all young people see around them, then it’s all they know.
Here’s to all the what Larry calls “crusty old farts”of this world. May God bless each and every one for having the eyes to see what so many choose to ignore. I look around me and am constantly amazed at what I see. Poor parenting is an understatement. I am amazed at how many times in parking lots of busy stores I see parents with little ones trailing behind them while they are on a cell phone oblivious to where the children are. I guess it is too hard to hold a little ones hand and talk on the phone at the same time.
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Thank you for writing this article. My brothers and I were so fortunate to have been raised by parents who instilled hard work, fairness, manners, compassion and love. There’s nothing wrong with any of those, and they have (still do) serve us well. I will definitely be sharing this with my fellow co-workers in our government, service industry. We work each day to deliver excellence in our industry, and this message helps remind us all to have pride in ourselves!
It’s lack of pride, but too many have pride for things that ought to have been expectations. I am reminded of the old expression, “Do you want a medal or a chest to pin it on?”
Refer to yourself as Cob Winget.
Crusty old Bast…:.
Well you know.
I never will forget an old man I was in line with on June 6th 2001 in Sand Springs Ok. We had been in line to check out at a grocery store. I made a comment how slow the line was going. He looked at me and told me on that day in 1944 he was at Omaha. The front of the LST dropped and they took casualties. There was a red headed boy maybe 19 that hesitated. He told me he swated the boy with his carbine and the boy took off. Just as he hit the end of the LST door a German round hit the boy in the head and he dropped off into the surf. He said as he hit the surf he saw the body of the boy. He said he thinks about that boy every day.
An encounter with an old man and his memory. I never saw him again but I hope he found his peace.
Actually, Larry, they are proud of themselves for taking tax paid freebies, bullying others and abusing systems. It is not the same pride your veteran had. It is not a pride of ownership, pride of accomplishment or a pride of fair play-it is the pride one has when they are given everything and feel entitled to have it. Just like everything else, there is good and bad pride-people who feel pride for doing something positive feel full of self respect because they were able to accomplish something or make a difference. People who feel pride because they think they are better than everyone else are just full of themselves. I don’t know if that makes any sense what I said…
It is a global issue that over the last generation or so people are taught to focus on what they can’t do rather than what they can.
Of course this was done originally with the best of intentions, to highlight and raise awareness of those in genuine need, but like so many things has gone beyond what is acceptable into what is, like your ‘two girls, one cast’ experience clearly stupid.
And whilst I am now happy that we live in a world that has moved on from my Grandparents queuing for food to my daughter queuing for an iPhone, it saddens me that what we also have now is a society that looks for, in any situation, an excuse for failing than a reason succeed.
We used to be a country that could do everything. All things were possible and we were confident. Today we can’t seem to do anything. Worst of all we are afraid of even trying. Examples abound. What happened to our space program, why did it take so long to reserrect the world trade center, why do we live with the fear of terror at any moment. We need to stop being a nation of give me, and get back to the self reliant country we used to be!
I do not share your pessimism. We tend to stress the negative because the human mind has a natural tendency to focus on short-term annoyances. The reality is that many things are getting better, and that today’s world offers more opportunities for entrepreneurs than any previous period in history. Nowadays you can invest your savings in high-growth companies and countries at the click of a mouse, publish an e-book in less than 30 minutes, or make international phone calls for free. Do not allow yourself to be irritated by details that don’t make any difference in the big picture. My optimism is firmly grounded in reality. It suffices to look at things in perspective.