Going Beyond Respect.

I used to make jest of my little niece whenever I go to visit them and she tells her cousin, "I am not your mate, you had better respect me!" Whenever she makes that statement I laugh so hard.

I usually tell her that in as much as we want others to respect us, we in turn should learn to respect ourselves.

You do not have to always remind someone to constantly respect you, people want to see why you want to be respected.

A friend of mine usually say that respecting her elder brother is a big deal because he does not respect himself. Her brother also always want people to respect him but somehow people keep disrespecting him and this alone gets him upset and sometimes he goes physical about it.

Respect is a positive feeling or action shown towards someone or something considered important, or held in high esteem or regard; it conveys a sense of admiration for good or valuable qualities; and it is also the process of honouring someone by exhibiting care, concern, or consideration for their needs or feelings.

Growing up, our culture and tradition taught that it is norm that the young must always greet their elders when they wake and when they come across each other. In fact anyone who does not keep up to this norm is considered to be rude, disrespectful, and morally deficient.

Source: Children greeting their mother as a sign of respect

The young must kneel or bow to do this depending on your gender as a female or male respectively. For a child who is considered disrespectful, the parents mother is to be blamed in most cases, if not in all.

Despite that fact, respect still has a lot more to offer and I feel that people do not completely understand that.

Respect is not only about greetings, bowing, kneeling and all of that. Respect has to do with accepting oneself first then accepting others (one cannot accept others if he has not accepted himself).

It is showing other people that their opinions matter even when it does not go in line with our own ideas and believe. Respect is reciprocal they say, this means that the amount of regard you give to people is the same you shall get.

It is not about age.

Some people believe that it is only the elderly that is deserving of our respect, but I take objection to this and I say it’s not true.

However, some adults feel belittled especially when young ones correct them. Even when this is done nicely with caution, some elderly will still feel offended at the mere fact that a child who is nothing corrected them.

This is simply allowing our ego cloud our sence of judgement. When we accept the opinions and ideas of people irrespective of their age we are morally standard. As a matter I fact, age does not mean anyone knows it all

Respect has nothing to do with age just the way people denotes, it has to do with the following:

• Admiring and regarding other people's belief and opinion even though they might be different from ours but we still honour that about them.
• Caring about other people's feelings and what they might be going through, not calling people names or behaving badly towards them
• Minding how we speak to people and not hurting them because we are in a bad moods.
• It is the control we have over our emotions and apologizing when we lose them.
• Standing up for other People and their rights is part of respect.
• Acting positively about ourselves and/or others.

Respect and affluence

Some people also make the mistake of mistaking respect and affluence, 0they feel that their respect should be only for the people they consider as rich or influential.

This is totally wrong and does not speak well of us when we do this. No matter the social class or financial status of others, young or old; they still deserve our respect.

Looking down on people is not good at all, rating people based on their outward appearance and judging them based on our own standard before showing respect is totally wrong and is not a good thing to do.

I can't respect them they are bad people

Yes, well I will not deny the fact that sometimes there are people who naturally are not deserving of our respect due to their ways of life and all of.

But I tell you that even at that, do not question any respect that should be given to people.

I hope I am not going to burst your bubbles if I tell you that through the respect we have for others who are not deserving of them they might change and become good people again. You never can know what good you have done by simply sticking to that which is right.

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Conclusion

I would like to remind us that respect is reciprocal, it is the amount of regard you have for others that you will have in turn.

Speaking kindly, caring, loving and understanding other people is a form of great respect for others, it is going beyond what people think about showing respect.

Our level of respect determines how morally inclined we are. Stay respectful!

Thank you for reading

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Image credit: GOOGLE.