I think one thing that we are forgetting in today’s world is to have respect for one another. It doesn’t matter if you think differently from someone, if you are of a different race, gender, nationality. You have to have respect for others.
So what is respect? Respect is the golden rule: I am going to treat you the way I expect to be treated. It’s silently saying you have your opinion, and mine might be different than yours, but I am still going to treat you civilly and we are still friends.
Why do you need it? Respect in some aspects is a reflection of how you feel about yourself. If you do not take care of yourself for example, maybe you smoke or drink too much, you are not respecting your body. And according to God, your body is a temple, you should take care of it and respect it appropriately. If you do not show respect to others – the reflection is that you do not care about them as a person.
People deserve to feel cared about. People are worth caring about.
It doesn’t matter who you are.
All people no matter what – they all deserve respect as human beings.
The problem in today’s world is that there seems to be this us versus them mentality. You’re on one side or the other and no matter what side you’re on, if you don’t agree with the person on the opposite side, then they don’t care about you. That could not be further from the truth. There is a saying that says love the sinner, not the sin. If someone does something wrong or even something that you are opposed to or don’t agree with, you can still care about that person and love that person.
In fact, please, by all means, show the person love. We are coming to an age where if you disagree with anything a person says, that you’re just better off saying nothing instead of giving your honest opinion, which is not how it should be. You should be able to give your opinion and listen to the person who has the opposite opinion.
We need to have respect for ourselves, for other people, for people’s property and belongings, for our home and our country. We need to find a way to be able to agree to disagree and still be civil with one another. Otherwise, its going to tear us all apart.
