Rude People

I hate to admit this but, one thing I have found, immediately since being back here in chicagoland is that people here are very rude and self centered. Mostly I encounter this while I am driving, but also in stores, and sadly even in our church. While driving I am frequently cut off having to slam on my brakes so I don't hit the person, honked at if I don't respond quick enough to a green light/arrow, and edged out of a line by someone who thinks they are more important by needing to be ahead of me at all costs. I have been at the store when an employee had to check a price of an item, while the customer chewed her out telling her that she was wasting his time and why wasn't she competent enough to do her job, to which she explained if she didn't do this she could lose her job. His response was flooring, when he leaned forward, pointing his finger and raising his voice "I don't care about your ******* job, don't talk to me about your job, you are wasting my time and I am the only one that matters here." To which I felt equally demoralized while standing in line next to him. On the employee side I am convinced that customer service does not exist here. When you try to ask someone while checking out how they are doing, they respond "fine" and the conversation is over. I have also found that most of the time they don't know where items in the store are and they don't care to find out for you. At church I have been chewed out by other church goers at the counter I work at because I couldn't specifically answer a question they had (which wasn't for me to know) but have given ample information to get the answers they were seeking. Or another example is when I have tried to help a person workin next to my counter over Christmas with the gifts they were loading up into their van to take to children who clearly could have used an extra hand and ignored as if I wasn't speaking to them. In general, people don't make eye contact with you, and you rarly see someone smile back at you when you smile at them. There is such a negativity all around, that it is hard not to be affected by it. This is especially difficult for me, because I like to be friendly to other people. So how do you flurish in circumstances like these? Or overcome the negativity? It is by far the biggest task I have to overcome while living in this area.