Qualities we won’t find at a bar

Personality

“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” ― Oscar Wilde

Day Four- Writing Challenge

Theme: Quora Questions

Motivation is like the waves that crash down against the sand. We are constantly searching for it. Where we find this motivation varies and how we use it is up to us. Our world is a consumeristic one. We consume, take, and consume some more. The consumeristic society breeds selfishness, obsessions, and chasers for desires. Sometimes, it is hard for us to find someone that qualifies against this society. You may be wondering..what does this crazy girl mean by qualifying against this society?

Our parents always tell us or try to teach us about the ways we can bring value to this world as individuals. Then we move on to gain an education that breeds us an even more complicated ideal that we should be running to bring value to the world through honor level grades. ( They even reward us for doing good in school.) However, we are never told what qualifies us for being a good person, and contributor to society. We are only told to bring value to the world through their own eyes.

We are all valuable. But we have yet to realize what qualifies us for being good. The problem is our society trains us effectively on what the world around us needs. Education can be fully paid for if we go into certain programs that have a drastic lack of applicants. But it stands to reason we trained for needs overvalues. Although, companies hire us on what value we can bring to them, along with the theory that they need a worker. Certainly, society is confused.

Certain personality traits are hard to come by. The majority of hard traits these days are the actively good ones over the impactfully bad ones. But ideas of good and bad are based on the subjectivity of a person’s surroundings and cultures. In one culture, killing is bad, but in another, it can be a means of survival. Where we live dictates what personality traits are hard to come by, and why they are so hard to find.

So, here is my list of personality traits and qualities that I find difficult to come by from the East Coast to the West Coast: for better or worse.

“If you’re gonna be two-faced at least make one of them pretty.” ― Marilyn Monroe

A breath of air

Kindness is a lot like air. We feel it but never see it with our eyes until a storm is brewing. In fact, Kindness is one of the few traits that goes severely unnoticed by many in their everyday life. Naturally, kindness needs no money, no funding, and no effort. Yet, billions of people chase after the theory that if they had money then people will like them more. I don’t understand this.

It is not money, women, cars, or any amount of consumeristic valuables that will make us liked. If you want to be liked so much try to be kind to someone who may not deserve it. Try to be kind to someone who may not have been so kind to you. The power of kindness is like a tornado. A tornado that spreads hope in the hopeless, and gives without asking for anything in return.

I say that kindness goes unnoticed because a simple trait like this takes no effort. It’s a trait that once passed on can be passed for generations. Today, we are quick-witted to jump the gun, and too sucked into our electronics to pay attention to the people around us.

People have a tendency to give compliments with a twist. I call these backhanded compliments where the person expects a nice compliment in return or is secretly insulting you but thinks you are too stupid to notice it. This type of kindness is a selfish kindness and it derives from a person’s inability to be satisfied with who they are. How I handle these types of people is by thanking them. I don’t compliment back about looks.

When I compliment someone it is from the heart, and not because of looks. I will always point out something someone has done that was extraordinarily kind. It is tough to do that kind of kindness. But it is real. It is me.

Another act of kindness is the pay it forwards campaign. I believe in it but I also believe in paying for someone’s food or coffee when they might not be able to without asking for anything in return. Kindness is easier said to spread then done. We need more of it out there and it should be more like wind than air.

“Hold fast to dreams, For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird, That cannot fly.” ― Langston Hughes

If cellphone addiction is common, then the opposite is rare

We are cellphone addicts. Or at least a lot of us are. ( I don’t exactly understand why…but plenty of people I know can not survive without them.) A cellphone is a black devil device that gives instant access to any information, games, or person we want. Cellphones are not all poison, but our slow burn to dependence on them is becoming poison.

The majority of us have a harken to being unable to walk outside our house without one. Social Media addiction is a real problem. ( I don’t use my Facebook.) I’m not widely into being constantly reachable. I like my alone time or my quiet time as I call it.

I can sit in a room of fifty people and about 90% of them will have a phone screen in front of their eyes. I want to see people's eyes, not a device. It is so aggravating to want to speak to people but also compete with a device. I’ve gotten to the point that I’m settled with just being quiet at the dinner table.

Games like placing your cellphone down on a table until you feel like you have to check it, and when you do…if you are the first to go for your phone then dinner is on you exist now. This is how bad we are with our phones.

When a device is our life…we forget about the freedoms of having a true connection with people. The phone becomes the reason people can easily cheat, lie, and convey ill notions of the world. Yet, there are so few of us who can shut off our phone for a day or leave the house without one.

I wonder…what would happen if people realized its much easier to just talk to each other. Call one another out of love, please.

“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.” ― Zelda Fitzgerald

Ironically, not drinking Alchohol is rare these days

Now, Ironically there is a bad trait that is hard to come by. ( Wait, I think I lied.) I even tried to google this up and all I got was blood types. So, maybe, I looked at it wrong. But it looks like rare traits these days are what people perceive to be as good ones. Let me throw this last one out there because a lot of people struggle with it as well.

Not drinking alcohol

I suprise bartenders when I order non-alcoholic drinks and still attend parties. It’s easy to act like you are drunk when people are already too drunk to notice. You realize that when people have drunk their desires, and truths fall out of their lips like candy. If you ever want to know a secret about someone …walk into a bar but don’t be the one to drink.

I’m not huge on drinking. I don’t like what it does to the body. I don’t like how my body reacts to it. I especially don’t like how it numbs people from being who they are. I can be strange. Sometimes, I feel like I’m a unique unicorn for never yearning to drink. Drinking away problems does not get rid of the problems. Typically, it makes them worse.

My story about this falls from a friend who one day drank too much, and the next day wasn’t alive to see the morning dew or the birds call in the forest. I thought to myself…I won’t be like that. I told him to drive home safely but…I forgot what alcohol does to the brain. Alcohol seeps into our decision making, and it causes us to harm ourselves even at the worst of times.

Our loneliness is no excuse.

These are the chosen traits that I find to be rare in society. If you can think of others, I implore you to share.