Why Would Respect Have to be Earned?

I've heard some people say that respect is something that has to be earned and not given. I do have to admit that when I hear that, it makes me wonder why and how they came to believe in that concept.

I come from a different point of view, where I believe that respect should be given to all people right from the beginning- meaning that we should respect everyone and show respect to them right from the beginning. By saying "everyone", I mean all people including our family members, friends and even strangers. 

Basically, anyone you come in contact with during your day, whether through face to face contact, through electronic communication ( e.g. social media or email) and even through phone communication, deserves your respect.

To me, it doesn't matter if I've never met a person before or if my communication with them is either totally or semi-anonymous. I still feel and show respect towards them. In my opinion, everyone deserves respect right from the beginning.

However, there are times when the respect we will normally have for and show towards another person, is either rejected or not reciprocated.  This is a case where the respect we initially had for a person is put into question or is violated. 

For example, in a department store, we may have been patiently waiting in line patient for a long time to purchase some items. When our turn comes up we greet the person with a smile and happen to have a question about our merchandise and the sales associate responds in a very nasty disrespectful way back to us.

In this situation, we'd shown respect to the associate, but it wasn't reciprocated. This is a simplified case, where we will either question or lose our respect for the individual. For that person to have our respect again in the future, he or she would have to "earn" it back, if they had the desire and the opportunity to do so. Otherwise, we would likely remember them and not likely choose to either wait on his or her line or to ever shop at that store again.

Certainly we run into some way more complicated situations where someone makes us question or lose our respect for them, but you get the idea.

In these types of situations, anger and other emotions can sometimes take over us and we may react back in a non respectful way. If people let their emotions take control they sometimes react in a very hurtful and mean way back to the other person. We see this all the times in the news how sometimes people unleash their anger onto others and even hurt or kill other people in reaction to feeling disrespected or "wronged" in some way. Anger can be such a very dangerous and sometimes lethal reaction to someone or something.

People who have let anger take over can sometimes feel remorse afterwards for having reacted in a mean or disrespectful way- whether the other person appeared to have "deserved" it or not.

Thankfully, most likely one's conscience keeps people in check and makes us to reflect upon how we've treated others. After the emotion of the situation has subsided, we might realize that the other person may have been lost in his or her own thoughts and/or misfortunes and didn't mean to treat us disrespectfully. Although, there really is no excuse for them treating you that way, it may not have been intentional. Everyone does makes mistakes.

Faced with a disrespectful person, we have an opportunity to be a good role model for society. With that intention, you do have a couple options that we can choose including:

1. You can ignore the person and if possible, walk away from the person/situation, so as not to be subjected to such disrespectful behavior.
2. You could calmly confront the other person and call out his or her disrespectful/ offensive behavior. This may require more than just a few minutes of dialogue, but if you handle the situation in a calm and honest manner while showing respect, you may be able to help the other person to change for the better. If this doesn't work, you will need to revert to option 1 and see if this is the best choice based on your type and length of your relationship with him or her.

In either case, you'll maintain your dignity and show others how one can respond both effectively and peacefully to negative people and situations. You can have power over your emotions rather than letting them overcome you. 

There are times that I have people come back to me, on their own, and apologize for their bad behavior, after doing some self soul searching. If that happens to you, it's up to you to decide, based on the severity of their actions, whether the person deserves to have your respect again.

In an ideal world, if all people made a point of showing respect for others all the time, we'd live in a very peaceful world, or at the very least- a very forgiving world.

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