A lot has changed in the world we live in today and despite living for just a few decades so far, I can point at a lot of things that have vanished between my childhood days and now. It all happened very fast and somehow, the absence of these things has affected the world negatively one way or the other even though a lot of people won't admit it. Calling out these things today ends up as an accusation against tribes, genders and ethnic groups which practically doesn't end well.
People have found many ways to defend the terrible changes they have adopted and nothing would make them see the bad side of it. Sometimes I wonder if maybe they don't know and just turn a blind eye to the truth or if they are truly ignorant just because they were born after those good cultures and ways of life had been discarded.
Recently, I was watching a video online. Some English women were shown a particular dress that revealed some sensitive body parts in the 90s and they all condemned the dress. Fast forward to what's happening in the world today, people wear these dresses comfortably without thinking twice whether it's good or not. These changes have been widely accepted and the new generation has been misled just because they don't know what things used to look like some time ago.
Whenever I look at the indecency in the world today, I just shake my head because the damages these things have caused and if we think critically, all these consequences we have seen aren't the end of it.
One of my siblings is the type who loves history and whenever he sees something, he gets really curious and begins to ask lots of questions. There are times I easily get answers to clear is curiosity while it is the opposite sometimes just because I don't have any practical example around me except on the internet which sometimes isn't convincing enough.
I don't know why it is difficult for me to blend along with a lot of changes and this has earned me the name Baba 70 from my wife which a lot of our friends have adopted. They tease me about how old-fashioned I am but it really doesn't bother me because there are a lot of things I can't let go which includes my civility and morals.
I went out with my friends to a party somewhere around Surulere stadium, we called an Uber at our meeting point but the fee was too much for the trip so we opted for the BRT. The bus eventually filled up and we left the garage. We had only travelled for 20 minutes before we ran into traffic and it was really hot on the bus.
I saw a pregnant woman sweating profusely, she was standing on the bus and without hesitation, I called her to have my seat. We arrived at our destination and my friends said the woman played a fast one on me, they asked why didn't she pay for a seat when she knew that standing all through the trip wasn't possible, they said a whole lot of things and I was speechless.
Is this what the world has become? As a teenager, my mom always instructed me to give elders my seat when we boarded Molue or anywhere and I did it happily because it was the right thing to do. Civility and Morals are missing in the world today and it has dragged the human race backward.
Today, you will see kids engaging in a heated argument with their parents or elders and honestly, it is a horrible sight to me. Sometimes, these kids are wrong and it's the other way around in some situations because the elder is at fault. Back then when Civility and Morals were paramount to us, kids respected elders and the elders did the same thing. An elder wouldn't do what would make the kids disrespect them and there was peace among humans.
The absence of morals and civilization has deprived us of some things and embracing them definitely brings back a few things that are missing among us today.
Better Conflict Resolution; I believe that this is one of the things embracing morals and civility would bring back to today's society. A lot of people today are terrible at handling conflict, they just want to cause havoc irrespective of who they are having a misunderstanding with but with civility and good morals, people will take a better approach to settling conflicts.
We will stop seeing tragic news here and there which I find displeasing.
With Civility and Morals in the picture, the goal to achieve a stronger community can be accomplished because good approach and communication would be inevitable and these things would improve the relationship between people in the society. People will trust and respect each other which will grow into unity among them and with unity, they can accomplish a lot of things together; a stronger community is inevitable at that point.
Embracing Civility and Morals will help not just this current generation to live in Harmony, it will do a whole of good for the coming generation. It would guide them to live right and that would be only possible if they learn this from this generation.
It's really sad to see what's happening out there, the world has become a toxic place all in the absence of Civility and Morals but it's not too late to set things right. We can't expect the world to change at once but we can influence people with our way of life, they will also influence others and before we know it, people will embrace good things again.
All image were design on Canva.