Common Sense - is it Common?

Looking around, it is often logical to wonder if common sense hasn't gone the way of so many of our anachronisms. If you research the origins of realities such as the Brits driving on the "wrong side of the road," you'll soon discover that they originally did so because it allowed them to wield their swords for any occasion of being attacked by the enemy. This information was as interpreted by Yahoo.com but there are numerous references to this in literature. Unless they have reintroduced swords to British culture, I wonder if this custom is still justifiable.

Being that I don't live in the UK, this is really none of my affair. I have no immediate plans to drive in the UK and if I do, I'll certainly adjust as necessary. In the interim, I continue to wonder about some of the domestic customs that prevail and whether our common sense has gone the way of carbon paper and mimeograph machines.

The first to occur is this unfortunate business of wearing pants that drag along the ground and offer unobstructed views of underwear. One might want to posit the right to wear essentially what we want as a constitutional privilege, to which I might be likely to respond that it's my right not to look at someone's Fruit of the Looms. Is one of us entitled to greater rights than the other? This is a debate probably better left to the historians or attorneys.

Another reality that causes me to shake my head in disbelief is shopping venue behavior. Never mind the fact that copious shoppers arrive looking as if they are on the way to a masquerade party with excessive make-up (who's to define excessive, I wonder), hair gel and attitude. My recollections of going shopping, regardless of the store, is that you respected your fellow shopper by keeping your cart close to you and using seemingly archaic expressions as "excuse me" or "pardon me" when you need to get past someone and proceed down the aisle. More often than courtesy is the occasion for someone to mash his or her way past you, oblivious to the body parts that may be damaged along the way.

Are there more rude drivers on the road than there used to be? Does the prevalence of speeders, weavers, tailgaters and those who cut us off suggest a decay in moral fiber? It is unlikely that there are any methods to track this. One might well try to suggest that I have less patience for rude drivers than I did at twenty-five and that assertion is likely to be true. But my frustrations might well be assuaged if I could identify courtesy and politeness displayed by younger people as well as those of us who were taught to know the difference.

Don't want to sound curmudgeonly. Very often we are treated to examples of young people volunteering, giving, contributing and working diligently for charitable causes. I can't help but hope, however, that we parents continue to talk about the right actions to take, common courtesies toward our fellow humans and common sense acts such as holding a door for someone who can benefit from the gesture. In our very busy lives, there must always be an opportunity for a moment of kindness, particularly in consideration of the enormous benefits to be realized.