Uploaded November 2007 | Updated September 2026, 22 hours ago
In your younger days, you were taught life's most valuable lessons by your parents and by your kindergarten teachers: Patience, kindness, sharing, wonder, and perhaps most importantly, manners. Since then, you have grown, you have had experiences, and you have matured as a person, learning to think for yourself and research materials, and handle yourself in a social situation. Unfortunately, many of you are insecure about your mental maturity, often needlessly. Nevertheless, you must prove to yourself and others that you are not a baby. Perhaps that is why manners and kindness are so often forgotten. I am speaking to you today to remind you of your manners. With today's anonymous Internet technology, you have free reign to be rude without retribution. This is entirely unnecessary, and only causes people to become upset. Keep an open, but critical mind. Let people speak, and answer them in kind. Even if someone is being rude to you, being polite back at them may eventually rub off. It is very possible to have a pleasant and polite conversation with your worst enemy. In fact, I highly recommend it. You may both come out of it with immeasurably greater respect for each other.
In your younger days, you were taught life's most valuable lessons by your parents and by your kindergarten teachers: Patience, kindness, sharing, wonder, and perhaps most importantly, manners. Since then, you have grown, you have had experiences, and you have matured as a person, learning to think for yourself and research materials, and handle yourself in a social situation. Unfortunately, many of you are insecure about your mental maturity, often needlessly. Nevertheless, you must prove to yourself and others that you are not a baby. Perhaps that is why manners and kindness are so often forgotten. I am speaking to you today to remind you of your manners. With today's anonymous Internet technology, you have free reign to be rude without retribution. This is entirely unnecessary, and only causes people to become upset. Keep an open, but critical mind. Let people speak, and answer them in kind. Even if someone is being rude to you, being polite back at them may eventually rub off. It is very possible to have a pleasant and polite conversation with your worst enemy. In fact, I highly recommend it. You may both come out of it with immeasurably greater respect for each other.
