Just say "No!". . .

Metaphorically speaking, is this really how you want life to be?

It's high time to revisit the Classic Style slogan for 2018.  'Just say no to trashy.'  Turn your back on the trashy approach to life along with trashy attitudes, and the related trashy behavior that are all around us now.  Online, in popular culture, and maybe right up the street. 

In place of the belligerent rudeness and crass habits that seem to be the order of the day now, I suggest that greater effort is made toward acquiring some measure of polish, sophistication, grooming, and finesse.  Let's also toss in kindness to and consideration for others for good measure.  Self-restraint too might be another good ideal for us to add to the mix.  As my maternal grandfather -- from rural North Carolina mind you -- used to intone from time to time during my childhood, "Son!  Son!  Control yourself!"

Goodness knows that all levels of society in its present state could use more of these seven qualities than has become the sad, pathetic, accepted, and (amazingly) idealized norm in many circles.  It's time to stop being complacent about life and how we live it.  Let's reel ourselves in more than just a little, and get the darn ship back on course.  More bluntly, let's quit behaving as though we were raised in a barn, gentlemen. 

Besides formal education, the kind of self-improvement I encourage might start with a series of small steps at the personal level when it comes to how we present ourselves to the rest of the world through daily appearance and routine behaviors as well as in our interaction with others.  That aim also extends to how we are at home with the door closed.  

If you are onboard with any of this and can admit quietly to yourself that, just maybe, you did not have the greatest role models when it comes to cultivating those missing layers of polish, sophistication, grooming, finesse, kindness, consideration, and self-restraint, I suggest the following.  

Start with any of the books by Peter Post for a crash course on decent, everyday conduct.  Consider it your 'resocialization' if you will.  When it comes to improving your daily appearance, have a look at books on the subject by the likes of G. Bruce Boyer and Alan Flusser.  Then, get busy.


-- Heinz-Ulrich