This is an AGE OLD problem that haunts us until this very day.
A person is raised with the identity of a religious person. Homo religiosis if you will. What is religion in his mind? Things that Goyim or secular Jews don't do. Things that are specifically Jewish. Rituals. THAT is religion. So that means keeping kosher, Shabbos, wearing tzitizis, tefillin and yes, even a black hat.
What ISN'T religious? Well - derech eretz. What we would call basic human decency. Like, one example of a million, littering. Decent Goyim don't litter so how can that be a religious act?
Answer: Before one becomes a religious person, one must be a PERSON. As we say in davening: "לעולם יהא אדם" - One must always be a man. A mentsch. דרך ארץ, we were all taught as children, קדמה לתורה. We must START with derech eretz. So it is simply an error in perception.
The examples are legion: How we behave in public spaces, personal hygiene, how we talk to others and the list goes on and on. When we are not careful about derech eretz, we often transgress a VERY SERIOUS religious sin called חילול השם, desecrating the Name of Hashem, for which there is NO repentance in this world, as the Rambam makes clear in the first chapter of Hilchos Teshuva.
Then there are acts that are actually religious acts and defined as mitzvos or aveiros but are often not viewed as such by otherwise religious people. One example is guarding one's health. How can it be a mitzva if even Goyim do it? Because the Torah says "ונשמרתם מאד לנפשותיכם" which is understood by the Rabbis as meaning that we have to guard our health. So wearing a mask is a mitzva! NOT go to public places [these days] is a mitzva - EVEN FOR DAVENING [unless the experts say otherwise].
Working for a living: Chazal, the Rambam and many others understood that working is a mitzva [there is a whole sefer of sources written by R' Yoel Schwartz]. When I die, I would rather have more hours of Talmud Torah on my record than being an accountant or bus driver but that doesn't mean that being an accountant or bus driver isn't a mitzva. But since it is not a ritual and PLENTY of Goyim work [even though today they should open up kollelim for Goyim because of the millions who are unemployed] the Homo religiosis doesn't think that it is a mitzva. The Rambam held that when one learns PHYSICS he is fulfilling a serious mitzva [don't scream THAT out in the Mir or Ponovitch Beis Medrash...]!! [See Hilchos Yesodei Ha-Torah and here].
Loving other Jews: Going and hugging a Jew and saying "I love you" is not perceived by many as a mitzva [and hence you almost never see it done on a daily basis]. But in fact it is the overriding principal of the entire Torah, as per Rebbe Akiva. It is actually a bigger mitzva than say, washing negel vassar or davening maariv!!
There are many other examples of both derech eretz and actual mitzvos but are not perceived as such and thus so many are not careful about them.
Now let me make myself clear: I am NOT saying that all religious Jews lack derech eretz or don't perform non-ritual mitzvos. OF COURSE they do!! There are MANY MANY super derech eretz Jews who try to be careful about all mitzvos.
But not always and not all Jews. This is not a chiddush of the author of this post but rather particularly from the time of Rav Yisrael Salanter, the mussar masters have been calling people out on these infractions. I am just suggesting that the problems have not yet been solved. Let us be partners in making the tikkun!!!
