Respect

If there is a world-wide currency, it’s respect. Unfortunately, it’s in short supply.

Respect is simple. It just means acknowledging the value of the other person. Their ideas, their values, their space, their tastes, their place. Perhaps it’s a variation on the Golden Rule, “Think of others as you would have them think of you.”

Respect is easy if it’s advantageous, or if it is toward those you like. Respect is easy if reciprocated, but more powerful when it’s not. Respect can be feigned if compelled, or when there’s something in it for you. But when we’re called to respect others at some cost, real or imagined, that’s a different thing.

If there’s an opposite of respect, it’s prejudice. Prejudice is a reaction, intentional or instinctive, to not like someone because, well, just because. They’re too old, or too young, or too black, or too Native, or too fat, or too slow.

Respect is not instinctive, it’s learned, just as reading or writing are learned. Respect is simply one of the tools of civilization, one of the devices by which we get along and make the world more livable, rather than playing the zero-sum-game of the Law of the Jungle.

Respect doesn’t require me to relinquish my values or my beliefs, but it does require me to park them when they cause harm or hurt to others.

Respect doesn’t require us to accept harm from others, or to allow them to harm themselves. Respect is not an attribute of the weak, but a mark of strength. Disrespect is easy, respect is not. It often requires restraint and self-discipline.

Exercising respect is often subtle and nuanced, but like everything else in life, we get better when we listen to our conscience and learn from our mistakes.

Respect can’t be taught, it must be modeled, and each of us can show the way. For many of us that’s not so much avoiding active disrespect as it is demonstrating more active and thoughtful respect toward others, especially those who have nothing to give back.

Here’s to a more respectful day!