Three times in one day I was queue-jumped by someone in a store line-up. On Saturday night when my husband and I were out for our walk a teen-aged driver tried to bully us through the crosswalk by revving his engine and creeping up behind us. My daughter was humiliated by a transit driver who was apparently having a bad day and needed a scapegoat.

What is happening to the world? Where are our manners? In North America at least, we seem to have forgotten how to simply treat each other considerately. We are selfish, impatient and rude with each other. What happens? We are treated badly and the next person we see gets the brunt of our displeasure. It spirals downward, a kind of perversion of the pay it forward concept.

Where have we gone wrong? Valerie Pringle explored the issue in a recent documentary well worth seeing. One of the theories put forward suggests that the children of the 60s raised children who have an attitude of entitlement - one narcissistic generation raising another even more self-centered.

Technology doesn’t help. Cellphones, iPods, and so on create barriers to normal human interaction. Not only do we not acknowledge one another as we pass by, we now thoughtlessly allow these personal devices to interrupt our conversations. What does that say to the person in front of us?

We are losing the art of conversation, the ability to pay attention and truly listen to one another, and (I believe) the natural inclination to be considerate. With that loss comes a loss of faith in each other and of connectedness.

Let’s fight the urge to do unto others as we have had done to us – let’s go against the tide of rudeness and remember to care for each other. Even something as simple as holding a door or remembering our ‘please and thank you’ can make a difference in how each of us feels at the end of the day.