I believe in respect. I believe in respect for yourself, your image, and your opinions. But more importantly I believe in respect for one another, for your family, your parents, your elders, your teachers, your friends, and the man on the street. I believe that respect is more than what Aretha Franklin explained it to be in her song “Respect”. I believe respect is the result of your actions. I believe you either have respect for a person, or you don’t. There is no in between. I also believe in defending respect.
I was in a high school gym class one day that had students of all kinds, some I had never even seen before. One afternoon we played softball. We all participated, the jocks, the nerds, the outcasts, and everyone in between. I remember that there was one kid that particularly annoyed me that day. Not because of his obnoxious behavior, but for his lack of respect. He was the pitcher and found that it would be funny to insult the girls of the team. Not by poking fun at their softball skills, but by swearing at them and calling them crude names, names which I cannot even repeat. Now gym teachers have many students to watch over at one single time and there is always a sufficient amount of noise so it understandable that these comments went unheard. But I certainly heard them and found them quite offensive, that I could not let it roll off my back. I kindly told this student that those words where completely unnecessary and to please stop. The student did for the most part, but who knows what he might have said about me later.
Although it was only a high school gym class, and one minor offense, it makes me wonder what could happen if no one respected anyone. What would happen if not one single child obeyed their parents? What would happen if the great leaders and rulers of the world were to constantly fight and bicker? What would happen if all modesty and humility was lost? I would predict that the world would become cruel, harsh, and arrogant. Nobody likes to be treated with disrespect. It makes you feel like a failure, a low-life. For this I believe in respect, respect in all aspects of our lives. It is for these reasons that I strive to promote respect in not only my life, but in the lives of others. I believe respect can only be earned. And I believe respect can be seen in the simplest of actions, and of places, even in a high school gym class. This I believe.
4 comments:
It's a good piece, and I like it.
Lee Lee, I am particularly interested in ethics--what is the right thing and why we should do it. I try to respect my parents, elders, teachers, friends, and particularly the disadvantaged, destitute, and disabled. But I think I do it more so as a consequence of how I was raised, what I was taught, and the snippets of things I listened to in church on Sundays. You seem confident in what you do and what you believe. I am not. Then again, you have a much different perspective than I do, and since you are an intelligent woman with whom I know I can converse, please suffer my questions, if you will.
Why should we respect one another in the first place? What does it matter how anyone else feels? This might be a very difficult question, though, since it might go to the very heart to the very basic (and possibly abstract) question of what makes goodness good. Answer if you wish.
Something I'm more interested to know is if you think certain people, whether they be elders or the homeless, deserve a special level of respect, or if this respect should be based on special conditions. Is such respect applicable to, say, a new elderly acquaintance? How can you respect someone who hasn't earned it? Is there a baseline respect for everyone? What should that be?
I'm particularly interested in the parent-child relationship. Now, I understand children should usually obey their parents for their own safety and well-being, but in some matters extraneous to a child's well being--like in matters of self expression--parents might seek to control their children. Can we draw a line for this respect of authority?
Finally, I wonder what you think about where forgiveness and toleration lie when offenses are made. When can we tolerate, when can we forgive, and why?
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