Witness & Reason

The title of this post popped into my head the other day while I was at work. I was on my down in the elevator to the first floor. Along the way, it stopped on another floor, and the doors hissed open as the elevator gave its whimpered ding to alert those waiting that it had arrived. I looked out on an empty hallway and waited for the other passengers to appear, but after a couple of long seconds I was beginning to think that someone had called the elevator and then decided to take the stairs. I instinctively went to push the button to close the doors, but then they appeared. It was a man and woman, both in their mid-20s, but the shuffled towards the elevator like a couple of zombies. They were engaged in a conversation, so I just nodded as they took their places on the other side of the elevator. They continued to talk as the doors closed and I patiently awaited the elevator to take us to our common destination.

Now this might be due to the time that I was raised in, the way in which I was raised, or where I was raised, but when the doors open, I always offer others to get off first, especially women. And it’s just generally understood, I thought, that ladies go first, then whoever is accompanying her, and then anyone else. However, when the doors opened on the first floor, and I went to wave them out before me, before I could even offer, the other man pushed his way out, bumping into the young lady as he forced his way through. I thought to myself, well, maybe they are friends, and he is just joking around with her, but I then waved her through before me. But then as we went out the entrance doors to our building, he, of course, hit the doors first, and pushed through them, without holding the heavy door for her, and it almost closed on her before she pushed it open for herself. I managed the catch the second one for her, but that is when this phrase popped into my head, and I immediately thought of a segment that my father used to love on 60 Minutes when I was a kid – Andy Rooney. Andy would always make commentary on culture and society and make you do some introspection on yourself and your behavior.

I was raised that you hold the door for others, no matter the gender, that it was just common courtesy. However, I can’t help but think in the quest for equality between men and women, we have lost some form of chivalry or nobility in men towards women. I look at the younger generation (I am middle-aged, but a substantial portion of the people I work with are younger) and see that there is no longer that courtesy towards the better half of our population. Indeed, I see more and more our society (at least here in the U.S.) the lack of a desire to marry, build a family, and look towards the sunset of one’s life with a partner that you have spent a life of treasured memories with. Rather, everything is about the moment, cheap hook-ups, and self-centeredness.

I understand that we live in a world today that is growing more and more expensive. Often, the thought of having children is replaced with worry of how one would afford to even give them what they need, much less what you would want to give them. This is, in my mind, where society has played the greatest trick on us. When I think of my own childhood, yes, things were substantially cheaper. But my parents also didn’t have much money. At the same time, they weren’t burdened by these social expectations of a TV in every room, a computer for each person, a phone for every member of the family, and the world by subscription service. I look around the neighborhood I live in (of mostly middle class people) and see that each home has multiple cars in the driveway and it all just seems the expectation rather than the luxury that it is. We have arrived at a point in time where credit debt has built such grand expectations that most live paycheck to paycheck just to hold the creditors at bay. And so to start a family in such circumstances does seem like a luxury. However, the shift in thinking should be that those material things are the luxury, and the needs of love, family, and partnership should be understood as the necessity.

In the search for equality, we have lost more than traditional roles – we have lost what it means to be human and our purpose. We have lost our immortality through lineage, the joys of family, and what matters most. If we are ever to build a great society, those things have to come first. If we are to build a greater human society, built on the respect of life and love, we have to cast away these expectations of image and get back to placing those things that matter most first.