“Respect others as you respect yourself, respect others as you do yourself, or respect yourself and others will respect you” these are the words a lot of you may have heard while growing up or still hear today.
Mutual respect is very important in partnerships, friendships and helps us to engage in meaningful conversations. Imagine not agreeing with your friend’s opinion and destroying a long lasting relationship out of inability to accept other points of view.
However, this little sentiment of mutual respect tends to be abused and bastardised by people who want to exert authority over you. I have noticed this to be the case in schools. Ever since I was a child, I had a particularly horrible handwriting. Much to the frustration of my teachers this little problem was never fixed. The teachers did have a last resort measure of pointing out that my handwriting is somehow disrespectful.
Throughout my journey in multiple schools I kept on encountering instances of these autocratic teachers pointing out their importance and screaming how they are to be respected. Interestingly enough, they were the least likely ones to be liked by students.
In general, be careful when people start throwing the word respect around. I was participating in a debate and my opponent accused me of not respecting her, because I don’t accept her opinion. Here we find the main problem – entitlement. Nobody is entitled to your respect and you are not deserving of everyone’s respect out of the virtue of mere existence.
Respect is something that is either earned or manifests itself naturally. Look at your friends, chances are you respect them. Now think, did they have to win you over? Probably not, you were enjoying each other’s company. Now think about a teacher, or a person you live up to. Surely you did not just look at a random human being and decided to hold them in a high regard. There was some sort of a reason for you to respect them.
This is what matters. We tend to use respect, when we mean to say human decency. Now that is something everyone is very much entitled to. Just because you do not like someone or disagree with their opinion, it does not mean that you get to make a certain person meaningless.
My advice to you, dear Reader, is be selective with your respect. Be decent and do not feel invited to go around openly insulting people, not expecting any consequences. However do not fall for the low-level manipulation that is mutual respect. Make sure the people you know personally and put trust in are ready to show respect to you just as much as you are to them.