Could You Use an Entire Day of Politeness?

In a world of fast food, fast cars, and even faster lives, it's a wonder we remember to say please, thank you, or even hold doors open for each other. If anything, many people act surprised when someone is polite to them, when being polite was once considered the norm.

An up and coming author is exploring the whole idea by experimenting with the general public and the idea of politeness. His name is A.J. Jacobs and has been on the New York Times bestseller list twice now with his two previous books titled The Year of Living Biblically and The Know-It-All. Most recently, he has published a book called The Guinea Pig Diaries. A.J. is an editor at Esquire magazine who was raised in New York City and currently lives there with his wife. Besides his books, he's also been a featured writer in various magazines and is a commentator on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday now and then. He's also appeared on Oprah, The Today Show, and Good Morning America.

A.J. seems to like to experiment, be it by living by the bible for an entire year, or outsourcing his entire life out to India. So it's no surprise that his latest experiment was mentioned on CNN's website under the iReport section, and you can view it here.

A.J.'s latest challenge is to involve the general public by asking everyone to live completely politely for one day. He's also asking for video coverage of your 'polite day' to be sent in by January 15, 2010. It's assumed that some of the received footage will be featured in a future segment on iReport.

I found it fascinating that A.J. would challenge the public to do this, especially in an age when being a little kinder to each other definitely couldn't hurt. I am just hoping that this experiment garners a whole lot of attention. The web is saturated with bad news of terror plots and gunshots, and it would be nice to see something kind and inspiring instead.

I believe the hope is that this experiment may very well 'pay it forward'. People may be surprised at the politeness coming from someone else, but in turn, may be inspired to be more polite themselves. And depending on how many people get to view the results, maybe those at home will be inspired as well. Either way, I think A.J.'s idea is a great one that we could all stand to learn from.

Sources:

http://www.ajjacobs.com/content/home.asp

http://www.ireport.com/ir-topic-stories.jspa?topicId=362796