86 - Talking about respect

Alright, bloggers. Think of somebody who you respect highly and by whom you are respected as well. Do you ever talk about the respect you have for one another?

In my experience, respect is a tricky thing to define, give and return, but generally, I believe the less you have to talk about respect with someone, the better. Respect, trust and liking is felt instinctively and cannot be induced by reasonable words alone. Together, they mix together to form a 'bond' known as 'friendship' and that bond can be strong or weak based on the level, and more importantly, the balance of those three aspects (and perhaps some more, please share if you can come up with another component of 'friendship'). My best friend and I mutually trust and respect each other. We don't need to talk about it. We're fine.

But recently, I have been given a lot of crap about me being disrespectful. Often when we say we're 'disrespected', it is because we have certain standards that we apply to others, and in most cases, ourselves, but others are not abiding by these standards. We expect others to meet those standards, to 'respect' your standards, because they should, because they're people that mean something to you, because they should care, but they don't listen, they don't care, and they disappoint you.

Here's where I start to get opinionated.

First, who are you to apply standards to me? What about my standards that you are not abiding by? Why should I respect you first? Why do I feel like you never respect me?

Gosh, talking about respect is a pain up my ass whenever I have to argue with someone about our 'balance' of respect and it just isn't necessary to discuss it if you really were friends that have respect for each other because you'd use your intuition to achieve that balance. You would just tell them out loud every once in a while that you have a lot of respect for him/her, or you would do something that shows you respect the way they handle things in life. And just on the top of my head, respect can come in the form of many things, symbolized by things like tolerance, acceptance, patience, advice, fun, joy, agreement, disagreement, admiration, trust, liking and love, and many others, of course. Instead of demanding for respect, learn to give some first, in the form of any of those aforesaid things is fine...

(This post is a rambling, but in the past month or so, after somebody surprised me by saying he was tired of my disrespectful behavior, I spent some time reflecting on my behavior and found that we were disrespecting each other. The difference is that I am willing to accept that and do something about it to change myself to make the relationship better. After about three weeks of me trying and failing again and again since the New Year, though, it's obvious that you need to have a mutual effort to change. Some people need to look in the mirror before they accuse others of being disrespectful...)