I've really appreciated @ecotrain and @eco-alex since I first stumbled upon them over a year (two years?) ago. I'd really like to get more involved with them, especially since I'm often too busy to come up with interesting topics today, and they always provide a bunch of great prompts.
Recently they've dropped this prompt about respect
Respect is a funny thing. It is essentially missing from our society and we hardly realize it. Do our politicians respect us when they claim to represent us? Do the companies that force themselves into our conciousness through advertising and media respect us when they put profit over everything? Do our neighbors respect us when they refuse to have a peaceful conversation and instead insist on trying to change our ideas? Do our parents and teachers respect us when they force us to sit in a chair during the time of life we feel most compelled to move and explore? Do our friends and neighbors respect us when they expect us to be something we are not?
We won't achieve much by just complaining about others behavior and how the world is unfair though. We need to find something that we can change within ourselves to encourage others to give us respect and create situations where respect is the norm.
We have two ways to receive respect?
One is through force and will create a negative envronment where there is less to go around, lack mentality. The other is through leading by example and learning to respect yourself and others.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself
Do you really respect yourself?
You cannot expect respect from others if you don't respect yourself. If you put yourself down or put yourself in situations you don't want to be in, others will be encouraged to treat you the same way.
This may seem like common sense...but think about all the times you have forced yourself to do things you don't want to do. If that is not a lack of self respect, what is it? Responsibility? You have a greater responsibility to love and respect yourself which will help you become more able to do whatever it is you believe you should be doing.
Over the years, the disrespect we show ourselves by doing things that go against our true desire and inner nature builds quite a momentum. Therefore, it can be very difficult to turn around. You can slam on the breaks and risk losing everything. I've done this before. It was a wild adventure full of highs and lows. But I was 25 and without kids or anything else tying me down.
"I can't just quit my job." You may have kids to feed or medical bills to pay, so if a sudden 180 may be something you are not willing to try. So take baby steps! Find little examples of things you do that you don't want to go and don't really HAVE to do. An example is telling your boss you can't come in on your day off. If he isn't going to fire you, it's worth the risk. Or saying something you don't usually have the guts to say but always want to.
One we start doing what we really want to do we slowly begin to turn around the pattern of self-disrespect and eventually get some momentum going in the other direction. Things may not to our way at first but if we keep it up and adjust, eventually they will.
Are you sincere?
Insecerity is one of the most common forms of disrespect. It's a plague. We have become so accustomed to insincerity that we often don't trust things that we sometimes reject sincerity in favor of tricks and games. That is why "honest advertising" is so funny to us, it's not something we are used to.
A doctor or chiropracter is just as likely to mess us up as they are to heal us. They aren't bad people, they just don't have the energy to care, so few people do because they don't respect thenselves. How many initiatives have spoken of community or helping minnows when the overwhelming majority of the benefit went to the people in charge of the initiative?
Once you start respecting yourself though, it becomes much easier to be sincere and eventually it becomes imperative. Respecting ourselves eventually leads to respecting others, sincerity is part of the process of getting from here to there.
We can't change the fact that others are insincere by complaining about them. All we can do is lead by example.
Our habit towards Hierarchy
We learn from an early age to submit to those who are supposed to be above us. First parents, then teachers, then other classmates who we think are cool. This creates a kind of centralization. Centralization means that power belongs to a few.
Think of how easy it is for a celebrity to start a trend. Now think of how easy it is for your neighbor to start the same trend. This is centralization of power. Your neighbor can have the best idea in the world but if they aren't cool (the kind of cool established by those who have more power), it's going to be an uphill battle.
We respect those who already have others respect. By doing so we deny respect that others right in front of us deserve. How many people are more concerned with artists who are famous than the ones they already know personally? There is this magic attached to fame. We subconsciously think that something is special because it is already well known. We are much more likely to follow behavior that was first practiced by a celebrity than something started by a friend. From the cloths we wear to the words we use. Is it really how we want to live?
Maybe if we can respect our peers more, we will all have more power to move and change things. Maybe that is why we are always pitted against each other.
Once again though, it's easy to complain. The best we can do is live our lives as an example of how we want others to behave.
Peace
