respect
How can we respect life and other people, if we can not respect ourselves? Think about that for a moment…Respect works in both directions, towards oneself and towards others. There is no respecting oneself without respecting others, and no respecting others without respecting oneself.
Respect is integral to ’self and other’. Some of us are fortunate enough to have learned self respect from some adult while they were growing up. The majority of us did not. This is the horrible reality of this world. We don’t learn how to respect ourselves to begin with. Instead, we learn how to condemn ourselves. It is all about “do this, don’t do that”. There is no consideration of self respect or respect of life. I was taught respect of nature at least. Others are taught respect for sports.
Whatever inkling of respect or awe you have for something, grab it and run with it! Apply it to yourself and to the people you are with. Enhance it a thousandfold. There is no such thing as too much respect for anything. The more respect you can muster, the more you will connect to your own integrity and dignity. Integrity is always there in a latent state. It needs your voice and virtue to become manifest and dynamic in this world.
How do we suspect to get anything done otherwise? Whoever brought up the idea that something done without respect for oneself and others, without integrity, could be something “valuable”? Even the Mafiosi extols respect and integrity in his own petty and violent ways. The gang banger is hankering for respect and dignity. We are speaking of a universal force, not some denominational notion of being pious. Christianity knows as much or little about virtue as any other religion. Virtue, respect and integrity are the religion of all religions, the ethics of all ethics. Are business and politics somehow exempt from that ‘universal force to good’? Why should they be? This is the hubris of power – to somehow assume one is exempt from integrity. And this is the hubris of the mind – to somehow come up with excuses and rationalizations for being exempt. It is the possibility of being disrespectful.
How is it possible at all to not respect oneself? This is a very important question for all scientific psychology and religious dogma.
If you find yourself unable to respect others. Are you actually respecting yourself? If you are not, you have a real need, not just a perceived one. What does it mean to “respect yourself”? It means so much! It means everything. It is the difference that actually makes a difference for everything else you experience, perceive, think and do. Just remember, when you truly respect yourself it is the same as respecting life and anyone else. There is no difference. It is the same universal ‘force for good’. To suppose that you respect yourself just a little more than someone else is not respect, but preferential treatment.
Respect makes all things equal in the consideration of their uniqueness. Respect makes us be with and love whatever is different, because it is an expression of unity. When you learn to respect yourself in your own uniqueness and how you are different from others, you can respect others in how they are unique and different from you.
Unity in Diversity is the credo of integrity and of integration and it is the core value of WisdomPoint.
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