I think when we are children our parents teach us to respect others, but as we continue our journey through life we need to continue building on the knowledge gained in youth.

For me I had to learn self respect as I stumbled through life making mistakes, learning from them, and striving to grow as a human. As time goes on our self respect gets stronger and then we can project that onto others.

We will meet some who have no right to respect based on what they are doing in life and/or how they are treating others. That treatment can be in the form of words and/or actions. Now these same people may become more conscious and start working on making self changes and they can reach the point where others start respecting them.

Back to self respect...I think that tied to this is self actualization. We respect ourselves enough that we do not need validation from others. Maybe this is where our values and personal ethics begin to solidify.

I believe in people and to respect them as a fellow human being. So I try to maintain that respect until such time their actions and/or words cause me to pause and reflect on my original assumption, and then because how I view myself I just move on.

A very thought provoking post Priya! thank you for sharing.