Are We Forgetting Our Roots?

Why do we forget our roots? Do we really have a reason to forget, or has society simply become tired and restless?

Looking around today, we see that people are becoming increasingly unhappy. We live in a time where money has taken precedence over humanity. Instead of helping one another, we often turn a blind eye. On public transportation, instead of offering our seats to the elderly, we justify ourselves by saying, “I paid for my ticket, so sitting is my right.”

On trams, there are seats reserved for the elderly, disabled, and pregnant women. Clear stickers even emphasize this rule. Yet sadly, many people ignore these signs. They refuse to give up their seats when they should, denying those who truly need them.

🚋 A Lesson I Learned on the Tram

One evening after work, I took the tram home. The carriage wasn’t very crowded, so I sat in a seat reserved for the elderly and disabled. I opened my book and started reading. A few stops later, I noticed the noise increasing as more people boarded. My colleague was sitting next to me.

Suddenly, someone from behind spoke to my colleague: “There’s a disabled person here, would you please let them sit?” My colleague immediately stood up and offered his seat. But I, caught up in my book, didn’t even think to look around. It never crossed my mind to check if someone else might need my seat.

When my stop arrived, I got off the tram. That’s when I realized — two disabled people walked ahead of me, and one more behind me. All three had been in the same carriage with me. At that moment, I felt ashamed of myself.

In a previous blog post, I had written about how people never look up from their phones. That day, I realized I was guilty of the same thing — except with my book. Since then, I’ve tried to observe my surroundings more carefully, to be more considerate. That experience gave me a life lesson I’ll never forget.

If everyone insists on defending their rights because they paid their fare, then at the very least, we should respect the rules and warnings. When we look around, it’s not hard to see how much we’ve lost in terms of values. The real question is: when did we become so insensitive?

In our roots, there was sharing, helping, and respecting our elders. Now, in the rush of modern life, we are slowly losing these values. Perhaps the true question is this: Does forgetting our roots really move us forward, or does it actually take us backward?