Proper(ty) Respect
Lately, I've been noticing a behavioral trend that I find bothersome. There seems to be a growing lack of respect in how people treat their, and other people's, things. Of course, I've noticed it most in the people around me, often in reference to their treatment of my belongings. And these are small issues, rarely enough to get truly riled up about and even less commonly enough to say anything about. Yet, little things have a way of adding up when repeated again and again. And this behavior isn't limited to borrowed items- I often find the same people who mishandle my possessions treating their own things with disregard.
Growing up, my parents instilled in me the concept that respect for people's things is a reflection of your respect for them. Treating their things well shows your respect while mishandling and damaging their belongings shows a lack of care towards them. I believe in and live by the adage "return things in the same or better condition than when you borrowed them". When borrowing someone else's car, return it with a full tank of gas. Don't write in other people's books, and especially don't return their first edition hardcover Harry Potter with a coffee stain and kitty teeth marks in the cover (this one really bothered me).
I was also taught to respect my own possessions, giving each item its due level of care. Part of the theory behind this is to preserve a certain aesthetic, but more importantly, proper care of your possessions maintains functionality and increases an item's life span. While it is true that things are just things and they can be replaced as needed, there's no reason to hasten their demise through unthinking, careless behavior.
Additionally, respect and proper treatment of your own things reflect a sense of pride in yourself. Conversely, those people who treat their own things poorly seem to lack pride in themselves, often reflected in their appearance and attitude. I'm not arguing a causal effect here, but there does seem to be a correlation between the two. But I digress.
Again, we're talking small, seemingly inconsequential, events (it was just a book, after all). Slamming car doors, jumping in and out of one's car like it's the General Lee, damaging books and DVDs without offering to replace them, borrowing clothes, tools, etc. without permission, pounding away at a keyboard like it's Whack-A-Mole, (add your own observances here)... The list goes on. These circumstances don't seem to warrant a sit-down conversation explaining how one prefers one's things to be handled. You get irked, you move on.
But when a string of people repeatedly show a lack of respect in the same or similar manner, it becomes more of a cultural phenomenon than situational individual behavior. Have we become a culture that no longer cares about each other, as mirrored in how we treat each other's things? Or has our attitude towards physical things changed? Are we becoming a society that devalues objects (and the money they cost) to the point that everything is disposable? I've heard the argument that it's easier to replace something than to fix it. But consider that earning the money to replace the item is often more work than having taken care of it in the first place, and that argument flounders.
I don't think the lack of respect I've been encountering is malicious, but I do wonder where it springs from. Living in a college town, many of the people I interact with are younger than I am. Could it be that this younger generation was raised differently than I was? Have our values changed that much in such a short period of time? Or have we always been this irreverent of our property- was my upbringing an anomaly and I'm only now figuring that out?
And here's the question that's recently struck me: If we can't properly respect our own things, those items we work hard to pay for and take possession of on an individual level, then how can we be expected to treat communal property, something we each have only a partial stake in, well? Is negligence becoming the new generation's SOP? And if so, what does this bode for our interpersonal relationships, our society, and our planet - the ultimate 'communal property'?
