I must be getting old.
The other day I found myself annoyed for not getting the kind of respect that
I’m due.
Isn’t that the age old cry of the elderly? Not being shown enough respect.
It had me wondering what respect actually is and in which circumstance I have
a right to be treated with respect. And in which circumstance I have a duty
to treat others with respect.
Listening to the way people around me talk about respect. It seems to me that
respect is a kind of reward. Awarded only to people who treat you nicely.
But that can’t be right.
Given how many reasons there are to treat people rudely.
If this was a tit for tat world where you would only treat people nice if
they treated you nice. You would never reach the situation where you could
reward any one.
Nobody would ever be nice to you.
I’m reminded of a saying we had in the Netherlands in the 60s and 70s.
“Better the world but start by bettering yourself” (verbeter de wereld, begin
met jezelf).
The reasoning being that you can’t influence how other people behave, but you
can influence your own behavior.
But in my experience that’s not true.
I can influence the way people behave by the way I treat them. If I treat
them nice they usually treat me nice.
The more respect I show people, the more respect they show me.
Which means that respect must be an investment in a future relationship.
***
The funny thing is that this definition explains why I feel that there used
to be so much more respect.
The young are far more whimsical, running from one relationship to the next.
They don’t feel the necessity to invest very much in those relationships.
But as we get older we get more steady in our relationships and invest more
in them.
So in my youth I dealt with a lot of people who where much older then me. My
parents, parents of friends, teachers, shopkeepers and so on. Who invested in
the relationship by virtue of showing me respect.
Nowadays most of the people I deal with are younger then me and don’t feel
the need to invest in the relationship. And of course some are older but they
feel we live in a tit for tat world and only have to show me respect if I
show them respect.
It would seem that if I feel that I don’t get the respect I’m due, I would be
best of by showing some respect.
That way I have the best changes of getting some back.
Comments on this entry are closed.