Developing Respect For Others

There is a very famous proverb in English, “courtesy begets courtesy.” Very easy equation, yet we often tend to forget. Substitute courtesy with respect and its all clear. If you want to be respected, you have to respect others first. Developing respect for others is thus very essential for gaining a respectful position for ourselves in the society.

We often hear a common complaint that people in today’s world have become so individualistic, self-centered, and busy that they hardly have time for others; they hardly care about the people around themselves and forget to show the minimum sign of respect to others. What these complaining persons often forget that they are describing exactly themselves. Since, we see ourselves in mirrors for an insignificant amount of time of a full day and our actions and reactions are not videotaped for us to get feedbacks from later, and learn from our mistakes, we do not even know that we are also “birds of the same feather.”

There are some people, like those who are much older to us, or those who are relatives (again the elderly mainly) for who respect usually comes naturally, unless in some extreme cases. We also apparently tend to show respect for those from who we expect potential benefits like charity (may be for an institutional program), recognition, and recommendation and also for those who are influential people (economically, politically). We respect those who are academically or professionally more experienced than we are.

But the problem is that, there are some people who we take for granted. Even if we do not intend to hurt their feelings, we unconsciously hurt them by our body language, gesture, meaningful words and so on. For example, there are very few people who respect their domestic help, who respect people inferior to them in terms of profession. There are people who do not respect people of their own age or young ones just because they think it’s them who should be respected instead. There are a lot of people who do not respect people who are economically challenged. It is yet again a very common scenario to find people who, due their financial well-being, tend to ignore and disrespect anyone and everyone irrespective of their age, profession etc.

Developing respect for others is a very crucial establishment in our lives. We all know on the inside, how we are. Even when we are misbehaving with someone and totally overlooking the fact that we are, tending to pretend as if we are not being harsh at all and being totally normal, it is we who understand the flaw in our behavior the first. No matter how much we try to bury our conscious with our obnoxious personality, it keeps on biting and does not make us feel very much comfortable. So, unless we try ourselves, no one can make us respect others despite trying very hard.

Some very simple steps can be followed to develop respect for others. In order to show respect, we do not have to just be polite and all, we can show simple respect by helping others in their chores, being empathized, by not intruding in their personal matters, listening to what they say and valuing their opinions. These are, apart from millions others, some very easy gestures that shows, yes, I do respect you and I do that with a touch of courtesy.

As I said before, respect is a very primary feeling in us which we learn to deliver in a manner our surroundings teach us. Once we are grown ups, we are not left with much options to change the way we treat other people. But still, we can try. We can try when we can see our social, economic and above all mental well-being is affected by it. For such lessons, childhood is the best time. If parents and other people who the child likes and tries to copy (a very common scenario in most cases that a child has some very favorite people around them who they tend to follow and imitate their behavior) demonstrate respect for others, for example behaving in a good manner with the care taker of the house and valuing his/her opinion; the child will have the sense of respect built in himself/herself naturally. So, it will become a lot easier for him/her to respect other people since he/she is growing up with it.

So, it’s very crucial for us to develop respect for others. We have to consciously try to respect everyone, no matter who they are, what position they hold in our lives, what position they stand in the society, how old they are or what background they come from. We should not let our ego, complex of superiority take over our humanity. Thus with small and simple tasks like these, we can make this world a better place for sure.

Picture- Sailing "Footprints: Real to Reel" (Ronn ashore)