The trouble with Laman and Lemuel was rudeness.  They seemed to know nothing of kindness, and were, instead, caught up in selfishness, criticism, murmuring, and extreme rudeness.  Nephi used the word “rudeness” twice in one verse when referring to his brothers.  While aboard the ship he says that they “began…to speak with much rudeness, yea…they were lifted up unto exceeding rudeness.”  (1 Ne. 18:9).

Lehi zeroed in on the same problem.  He told his young son, Jacob, that “in thy childhood thou hast suffered afflictions and much sorrow, because of the rudeness of thy brethren.”  (2 Ne. 2:1).

In the end, rudeness always turns to bite you.  Contrary-wise it always pays to try to get along with people.  Consider the following examples:

My son, Aaron, asked a surveyor to tell him the best surveying story he could come up with.  He related that a bank was sued because the bank building was ½-inch over the property line on a narrow city lot.  The litigator won the suit, so the bank was forced to solve the problem by sanding ¾-inch off that side of its building.  Sometime later the litigator built a new building on his side of the line, and built it right up against the bank.  The bank then sued because the new building was ¼-inch over the property line on their side.  The same arguments were used in the second suit as the original litigator put forth in the first suit.  The bank won.  There was no way to shrink the second building, so the bank recovered everything—plus more—that it had spent on solving the first problem.

It pays to try to get along with people, and not be obnoxious.

Our son, Kevin, showed us a clip from Funniest Home Videos of a little, old lady hobbling slowly across the street.  Walking was difficult.  She was doing the best she could, but the driver of the car that had to wait for her to cross was impatient with her progress, and leaned on the horn to hurry her up.  She was obviously incapable of going any faster, but was perturbed by the driver’s rudeness.  She paused in front of that car, smacked it with her purse, and continued her painful walk to the other side of the street completely oblivious to the fact that the impact of her purse against the car had activated the car’s air bags.  The surprised driver and his passenger were shown struggling to disentangle themselves.

It pays to be patient and kind.  Rudeness always turns to bite you.

(Compare with story, page 21 of this volume).