Who Deserves Respect?

A long time ago, when I was in high school, I did something without having put much thought into it. I picked up the phone and called my friend. I will mention that he is Vietnamese, as perhaps there were different cultural expectations at play in this story.

A man answered the phone. It was my friend’s father, though I had never spoken with him.

“Hello, is [my friend’s name] there?” I asked.

He went ahead and got my friend on the phone.

Then this friend of mine, with some embarrassment, explained to me that his father was of a different generation, and it was important that any time I called the house and if he answered, I should be more respectful in how I spoke.

He explained to me that I should say something more like this:

“Hello Mr. [last name], may I please speak with [my friend]?”

While I didn’t think I had behaved disrespectfully, I understood that actually, I was being disrespectful in the sense that I had spoken to a grown man in the same way I would speak to a peer, in a casual, and perhaps dismissive fashion. I hadn’t even greeted or acknowledged him or introduced who I was.

Despite that I felt I behaved respectfully at the time, clearly, my friend’s father had disagreed.

This is an experience I have often reflected on. I was very surprised that my friend mentioned my disrespectful behavior at the time, because he was a kind of reckless individual, seeming not to have a care, and not particularly respectful.

Nonetheless, I did not want to be viewed as disrespectful, so I happily treated his father in a more respectful manner after he instructed me about the different expectations of his “father’s generation”.

So today I wonder about this idea of respect.

Is respect an outdated idea, where older people simply wish to keep some form of power over younger people?

Is respect something that is earned, that those who are older or wiser, or more accomplished deserve?

Or is respect something that we all deserve, and that we should all have the right to?

And if different cultures or generations or people may have different ideas of how we can show respect, then how are we supposed to behave respectfully?

My thinking is that as humans, we all do deserve a fundamental kind of respect. The exception of course is if a person himself is not behaving morally, disregards the thoughts or feelings of others, or is otherwise disrespectful. Then, some of that innate deserving of respect may be lost.

Think of it - will you go out of your way to show your respect to the one who doesn’t appear to even respect himself, and shows little interest or care for anyone else?

Personally, when I meet someone new, I aim to be respectful, and I wish to be treated the same. I do not need to be revered, but at least I hope that my space, my time, and my being are all respected, not imposed upon, and not treated carelessly.

Much of what respect is, of course, is just basic courtesy and consideration for others.

Many of us, I would think, may behave more respectfully, or think it is more important to be respectful around a boss, or generally around people of higher status, power, or authority.

That may be a reasonable approach, but of course, such situations essentially dictate that we be respectful. If you are not respectful of your boss, you may upset him and he may look for a reason to fire you. If you are not respectful of an authority figure, they may abuse their power and make your life difficult. So if those are the only cases where we behave respectfully, then that does not show much value for respect itself.

Sure, some people behave the way they do out of the expectation for the returns that they will get, treating their decisions as if they were an investment that they needed to profit from. And they may see no reason to respect someone unless they can gain something from it. I do not live my life that way, but certainly, the reality is that such individuals are out there.

Rather than just situations where respect is almost required of us, I believe respect is important in many circumstances beyond this. I reflect on the experiences that most people have gone through, and how these make us deserving of respect. For example, most people have had some kind of difficulty or pain in their life. Most people have had something go wrong, or had a failure of some kind. And most people have struggled in some way to do what was right or moral, or with figuring out their life’s path.

Many or most people have also had the struggle of dealing with their own minds, perhaps vicious negative thoughts that they impose on themselves.

For example, just before writing this post, I saw a live chess video by a Woman Grandmaster (this is the name of the chess title) and she made a poor move in a game and berated herself, calling herself stupid for it.

I have found a spiritual calling (so to speak) in removing such negative thoughts from my mind. The most toxic negativity is that which is imposed on the self by the self. The world is sometimes unkind to us, so we must build mental resilience and fortitude, a mental fortress if you will, and focus on positivity, not berating ourselves with hurtful self-talk.

As this post is about respect, the most minimal way to show respect would be to avoid offensive gestures and language, and certainly to avoid verbal abuse. Unfortunately, many of us struggle to even be respectful to ourselves. And if you don’t respect yourself, you will not respect others.

Keep in mind that there is a sort of human struggle that we have all taken part in, and which may make us worthy of respect. As much as our successes or good experiences make us worthy of respect, perhaps the fact that we have all shared failures or negative experiences also makes us worthy of respect.

Now that I am old enough to have seen cases where a younger person was disrespectful, either to me or another adult or senior, I relate more to how my friend’s father must have felt. I wish these kids would consider their behavior and realize that the people around us deserve a basic amount of respect and decency.

Of course, we all have learning and growing to do.

Something I have to remind myself of is that children and younger people also deserve our respect. They have minds, beliefs, emotions, and lives of their own, and perhaps some of them get tired of adults undermining them and treating them as if they do not have much value.

Their way of dealing with this perceived lack of respect may be to lash out and disrespect older people, or simply to not show them proper respect.

I would say even for someone who feels disrespected, it is important to at least attempt to show basic respect to those around us. You can disagree about something, or have personal differences, and still be respectful about it.

Something that has come up many times in my life is that I learned after having met a person and known them for months, or years, that this person saved someone’s life, volunteers to help children in need, survived a particular trauma, is world-class in a skill, or has many connections with elite individuals. And many times, after learning this, I thought – Wow, I had no idea. This person truly deserves more acknowledgment and honor, or at least respect. Respect would be the minimum we could do, really.

Understand that there are so many things we do not know about the people around us. Many people around us appear to be ordinary but have actually gone through something much more, that we are not seeing.

I believe the least we can do is attempt to treat people in a cordial, respectful way.

Respect in the end may just be a way of saying to our fellow humans - I see you, I see that you matter, and I acknowledge to you and those around us that you matter, despite your successes or setbacks, despite your productivity or problems, despite our agreements or disagreements.

As to how we can be respectful, that is something we have to learn for ourselves. Being respectful to a colleague or peer may be different than showing respect to an elder or superior, or someone with a special title such as “Doctor”. Also, showing respect to someone you know may be different than showing it to a stranger. There may even be differences in how you show respect to people of different cultures or backgrounds.

To show respect, you have to take into account the expectations of the person you are with. What do they expect, or what do they feel is proper? Be observant, and see that if they do things in a particular way, the most respectful thing to do may be to join them in how they do things. If they speak in a quiet tone, perhaps be careful not to be overly loud. If they prefer to shake hands rather than hug, then shake hands. Of course, if they have their own unique cultural or religious customs, you should ask before joining in.

Be mindful of things from their perspective, and this will show you the road to being respectful.

I believe you will find that when you show people the proper respect that they deserve, you will be held in much higher esteem by others. They will like you because you are simply giving them the proper respect and cordiality that they were due. You will in turn be someone that people come to respect.