Expect Respect?

The assumptions we make, eh.

It’s like every now and then certain things that I take for granted crop up and challenge me to rethink whether or not it’s worth accepting. Often the case is that it is worth accepting on amended terms. Sometimes the case is that they are not to be accepted at all.

As you know I deliver workshops on a variety of subjects to support young people out of work in their jobsearch journey. One of the modules is on self-development and it is arguably the most important module because once we’ve sussed the personal issues that act as barriers to succeeding in the process then we’ll know how to deal other external issues. Sadly the module itself is insufficient to really make an impact on the lives of those who engage with it – you really need follow up work, etc.

One part of the module asks participants to put together as a step by step exercise the route to building self-confidence. One of the steps has the phrase ‘expect and demand respect’. I understand where this is coming from. Where before you could never lift your head up to acknowledge anyone and people could walk all over you, now things have to be different. The new you has to be assertive, it cannot accept any kind of treatment – it must expect something more in line with what it is to be human.

The thinking is fair enough on a level. After all, there is always the deal about people needing to earn respect because it’s not given, so it’s only fair that in the same way we demand and expect it from others if we sort ourselves out properly.

Yet.

This is where my problems begin with it.

Why should I expect respect from others? Part of a rights culture that I’ll have a go at in another blog sometime soon. Also an off-shoot of the ‘treat others as you’d wish to be treated’ golden rule lifestyle. As I am a human being worthy of respect, apparently I am meant to expect people to treat me in the same way.

Just because I treat others in that way, though, it doesn’t follow that I should expect others to behave in the same way. If there is one thing experience has taught me about people is that I can expect humans to be perfectly human. That entails the myriad of emotions, dispositions and mentalities that come with the human condition – a condition fatally flawed and subject to all manner of positive and negative influence. It is good to see the best in others, but that is something I choose to look for in another – it is not something I thus necessarily expressed in their initial attitudes, because they may not have the same persuasion.

What I found even worse was coming across polite people on the surface who had nothing much of constructive merit to offer beyond that. I found that even more disrespectful than the overtly nasty behaviour that some exhibit. That is the human condition though – the good, bad and ugly – and that is what I expect from others. That is what others can expect from me until the change in me is complete as my character is conformed to that of Christ.

Until then I am responsible for how I behave and how I treat others, but I am not responsible for how others treat me, though my demeanour can influence it, so I don’t expect respect. When I receive it though, for what it really is, then there is cause to celebrate and hopefully build healthy, constructive relationships on that basis.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd