In a world where every old person is respected just for being alive and kicking at reaching a specific age, is it mandatory to just bow down and take whatever this person is laying out just because he’s older and therefore more experienced?

Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, that you get into a fight with someone who’s older than you are.  It doesn’t matter what the fight was about, although it was more or less something over stupid. 

You know that you didn’t do anything wrong yet the other person’s refusing to budge.  Do you apologize or don’t you? 

In a country like the Philippines, seniority takes precedence over almost everything in almost every aspect of life.  Apparently it doesn’t matter that the elderly is the one at fault, you, being the ‘young one’, has to give way and take the first step.

Isn’t that a tad ironic?  That a young person’s not allowed to be immature?  That a younger person is expected to take the high road and do the right thing just to spare an older person from doing something that, at that age, should’ve already been ingrained into the personality? 

I guess the upside to actually doing the right thing is that when you do grow up, eventually, you won’t grow up to be another horrible person like that elderly you’ve fought with, right?  The act of swallowing one’s pride at such a young age can serve as practice, so that the future generation that you’ll eventually end up fighting with will have the chance to be immature when they still have the right to be immature.

*insert big sigh here*

God, I wish somebody decided to be that gallant way back when so that I could have a shot of doing the  juvenile thing that I do so well.