It seems that people these days are far more aware of their rights and appear to be prepared to be vocal in their expression of their rights. People know their legal rights as householders, parents, consumers even as sports fans, which you would think can only be a good thing as knowledge is a strength and a virtue.
It’s such a shame that so many of the people who claim to know their rights unfortunately don’t seem to know their responsibilities.
We often hear of parents being very assertive when broaching the subject of little Johnnys educational shortcomings with his teachers, the parents claim they know their rights and assert that it is the teachers responsibility to educate little Johnny, which of course is true, however don’t the parents also realise that they have a responsibility to provide educational support, listen to him reading, helping with his home work and even ensuring that little Johnny actually turns up for school in the first place and isn’t sat at home on his xBox.
Then we have the consumers, we’ve all come across people who know their consumer rights and return goods especially clothes after they’ve worn them once, some people even manage to conceal the labels that they have left attached in the full knowledge that they will be taking the item of clothing back after the weekend.
Then there are the consumers who return electrical goods after failing to read the accompanying ‘Getting Started’ leaflet before they plough straight in with what ever new gadget or device they’ve just bought.
Strangest of all are the sport fans, they’ve paid their ticket money and that entitles them to shout out their (often ill-informed) opinions if things are not going their way, after all they paid to get in and they are entitled to voice their opinion and woe betide anyone who dares to offer alternative opinions or interpretations, in these circumstances those with the loudest opinion wins.
Well, how about showing a bit of sportsmanship (oh sorry I forgot you are not sportsmen), or perhaps showing a bit of support for you own team during a difficult period, is that really too much to ask.
There also seems to be quite a strong correlation between those that ‘know their rights’ and the inability to accept that there may be alternative opinions, or even being able to accept the disgraceful ‘C’ word, yes Compromise!
With the rise of social media more people are able to express their opinions without any thought regarding possible consequences. Only this week I’ve heard of a young sportsman still learning his skill having a complete loss of confidence after receiving criticism on twitter & facebook from his fan ‘friends’, no doubt they will suggest that it was just harmless banter on their part, oh really?
As children we don’t really have opinions or responsibilities, just likes and dislikes.
As we approach into adulthood then we start forming opinions and feel the need to express them, we also start to take on some small responsibilities, just look at your average University student to see this.
Once we are mature adults the responsibilities mount up and need to be acknowledged and accepted, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop having opinions, we all have opinions sometimes quite strong ones, it’s just that some of us realise that sometimes it is wiser to waive our right to express them and just keep them to ourselves.
PS. Is this post in any way ironic, perhaps it is after all I am offering an opinion. I guess if you really don’t like my opinions you are more than welcome to not read any more.
