Can Blogging Rid The World Of Self Importance?

As I was out shopping the other day I was struck, once again, by the complete lack of common courtesy people have for each other today.  It is something that I encounter all the time and one of my biggest pet peeves. 

Would it hurt to smile and say “Hi” if we happen to make eye contact in the grocery store?  If I open the door for you a “Thanks” would be nice.  When I allow you to cross the street in front of my car, could you not slow down as you start to make a call on your cell or stop right in the middle of the street to share a joke with your girlfriend.  If you know the lane is going to merge, please don’t race to the end and then cut me off at the last possible moment.  If I turn my blinker on to change lanes, would it be asking too much for you to let me in instead of speeding up to block me out?  And please don’t make everyone behind you wait while you wait for someone to back out of a parking spot when there is an open one 10 feet away.  Count those 10 extra steps that you might have to take as your exercise for the day.

What causes people to act this way?   It seems to me that it is a sense of self importance and a lack of consideration for others.  So many people feel that their needs, their time, and their lives are so much more important than everyone else that they don’t have consideration for others when it comes to even the smallest things.

What does all this ranting have to do with Internet marketing you ask?  Well maybe nothing, but quite possibly everything.

As technology continues to change the way we communicate with each other, are we isolating ourselves?  Are we creating an environment where we don’t know how to interact with people, as people?  Do we no longer connect on a person to person level?  We no longer take the time to write out a personal letter, we email.  We no longer pick up the phone and chat, we instant message.  We no longer lean on our best friends shoulder when we have a problem, we blog.  Ah…blogging.  Could blogging be our way back - our way of connecting with people again?

Barring a cataclysmic event that wipes out all technology, we will never return to a time when the majority of our conversations with people forced us to look each other in the eye and make a person to person connection.  However, blogging is shifting the way we interact and encouraging us to have conversations with each other again.  Even though the conversations are still technology bound, they are taking us full circle away from the impersonal mass email marketing and back to the one on one conversations that allow us to make connections as people.

The increasing popularity of blogs is an indication that people want and need to connect.  Consumers want to be spoken with not marketed at. 

I am not saying that blogging is going to rid the world of egotistical, self important, inconsiderate people.  But I can hope, can’t I?  Maybe a more realistic goal would be that blogs will allow people to connect again.  And those connections will encourage them to lift their heads to see the other people around them instead of being so focused on themselves.

Perform a random act of kindness every day.   

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