Wait your turn before you speak - don’t interrupt or talk over someone.Ĥ. Greet people politely when you enter their home, and be sure to say “goodbye” and “thank you” before you leave.ģ. Say “please” and “thank you.” It’s amazing how these simple words can make a difference in how you come across to others.Ģ. If you need a brush-up, here’s a list of 97 manners: Everyday Mannersġ. When you use good manners, you stand out from the crowd and reveal a level of maturity, awareness, and care that many others don’t exhibit. Good manners create great first impressions, and they suggest an attitude of gratitude rather than entitlement, which is extremely appealing and attractive. Being respected and appreciated will never become outdated. Manners may have changed over time, but people haven’t. In a world that is rapidly neglecting manners, they are actually more important than ever. In fact, they have helped the species survive, as we need to operate within a cooperative social group to stay alive. They’ve developed over tens of thousands of years as a vital component of human society. Manners didn’t follow us from Victorian England or evolve just as a way to keep children in line. According to a 2011 article in Psychology Today, manners and “other socially enforced rules of politeness not only help train us, unconsciously, to be better members of society and its institutions, but also ‘rewire and strengthen networks in the brain.'” But good manners also play a huge role in the function of society.
We were taught that good manners were a sign of integrity, self-respect, and concern for others. She beamed liked she’d won the Nobel Peace Prize. Having been raised in the South, I was indoctrinated at an early age on the importance of good manners. I remember how appalled I felt at the time and wondered if an elderly man, or a person on crutches, or a woman with an armload of grocery bags had gotten on the bus - would everyone have stayed firmly in their seats and stared out the window? Didn’t anyone think it unkind or ill-mannered to allow a pregnant women to stumble around on a moving bus? Now maybe that’s sexist of me to have expected the men to get up, but the truth is, no one made a move to offer their seat. I looked around at the dozen or so men seated nearby, and I swear to you, not one of them got up and offered their seat. The bus was packed as usual, and there were no available seats. Within a few minutes, the bus stopped again, the doors opened, and a hugely pregnant woman climbed on. On one lucky day, I did get a seat near the front of the bus. Most of the time, I held on to a pole or the back of a seat, swinging around like a monkey (wearing high heels) every time the bus lurched to a stop. Every day, the bus was jam-packed with people, and you were lucky if you were able to snag a seat. When I was in my twenties, I moved from Atlanta to New York City for my career.Įvery day, I’d take the bus from my brownstone on the Upper West Side to my office in midtown Manhattan.