“A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference.”
- Winnie the Pooh

I’ve noticed a trend lately where many individuals seem to be adopting an attitude of “me first”, to the point of utter rudeness to others. While we all deserve to be taken care of and treated with respect as much as anyone else, we need to be careful that we don’t cross that line into a feeling of entitlement, or preferential treatment over others. We still need to be considerate and respect the rights of others.

A couple of examples of how the “me first” attitude affects us all; according to AAA, road rage has increased roughly 7% every year since 1990. I’m sure we’ve all encountered road rage at some time or another. And, recently it is estimated that 13.65 tons of trash was left at Siesta and Turtle Beach by people too entitled to pick up after themselves over the Memorial Day weekend. Thankfully, there were volunteers and county staff who tackled the cleanup after the weekend.

A couple of personal examples that I have experienced: 1. While waiting in line to check out at a store, I had a woman approach WITH her cart and tell me, “I was here in line ahead of you, but I was still shopping.” Wait, what? How could you be in line ahead of me AND still be shopping?? Nevermind – go right ahead – it’s not worth arguing if it’s that important to you. 2. I had someone “unfriend” me on Facebook recently because they said that when they sign-on to their Facebook they expect to see ONLY upbeat and positive posts and on this particular day I had shared an unhappy story from the National news. Wait, what? So your need to be entertained on FB supercedes my need to express myself??

Maybe we could all practice a little more tolerance and kindness with one another and instead of saying “It’s all about ME”, we could start asking “What can I do to help YOU?”. And that’s just one of the many things I like about BPW/EV; the caring side of our organization that looks at ways we can help others. Raising monies to provide scholarships to women returning to school is one such way that we do that. If you’re not already a member of BPW, I urge you to visit us at one of our monthly meetings, where hopefully, you will be greeted warmly by one of our members with, “Welcome! Please tell me more about YOU”!