As we grew up, respect was always stressed to us. For instance, teachers’ classroom rules included how we needed to respect them and our peers, coaches mentioned how we needed to respect them, our teammates, and the other teams, and our parents raised us to respect them. Everyone wanted respect, which caused them to emphasize its importance to us.

For the most part, many of us were taught that we should treat others the way we want to be treated, which would increase our chances of being treated right. If we wanted to be respected, we should give respect, and we will consequently receive respect. I think this is true for the most part.

However, there are always a few exceptions to situations like this one. Some people have a strange sense of entitlement, which makes them think they can treat everyone around them crappy while still allowing them to receive respect. I don’t really understand how people go through life like this, but there are inevitably people like this everywhere.

For this reason, I have a very specific way of approaching respect. I start everyone off with a baseline of respect. I will give them a decent amount of respect until they do something that either increases or decreases my respect for them. If I see they have almost no respect for anyone, then my respect for them will drastically drop, but at least I know that I tried to respect them.

Working off of the idea of respect, I think treating people well is directly correlated to respecting them. If you respect someone, then you want to treat them well because it’ll make them happier. If they’re good enough to have your respect, then they in a sense deserve to be treated well.

However, I’m not saying to treat people crappy if you don’t respect them. I don’t think being a jerk out of nowhere just because you don’t respect someone should be tolerated. Alternatively, the point I’m getting at is I think people who treat others poorly don’t have respect for those people.

This is what makes me angry. I understand that people give each other a hard time occasionally, but people who constantly shit on the people around them must not have much respect for them. I think the exception to this is if both people shit on each other equally, and they both know that it’s jokingly. However, I think that if one person gets legitimately offended, then all of the fun is taken out of it, and it can start to cross into the realm of being disrespectful.

For instance, I’m around some people who give me a hard time constantly. Even though it doesn’t necessarily offend me, I feel like I don’t give them an equivalent hard time. Sometimes I indicate that I don’t feel like dealing with their comments, and they think I’m offended.

However, I really just feel like they’re not respecting me as a person. It’s different if we’re doing a back-and-forth kind of thing, but I feel like that’s not often the case. I don’t want to constantly be mean to the people I’m hanging out with even if it’s a joke. For the most part, I want to be nice to my friends and not accidently offend them.

Often times, I choose to just remove myself from the situation. It’s one thing if I can tell that the person is completely joking, but if there’s a hint of truth, then I don’t want to deal with it. I don’t want to lose respect for someone because they’re being an unprovoked asshole.

On the other hand, I want people to give me crap if they legitimately think I’m being an asshole. I slip up, and I take jokes too far, too. People need to tell me that they’re upset or that they don’t feel like dealing with my comments. It’s fine to be direct; it’ll make me a better person.

I want to know when I do something wrong because I will never intentionally disrespect someone who I respect. This is why I tell people when I don’t feel like dealing with them anymore. If they stop, then it wasn’t intentional. If they keep going, then they don’t respect me, and I will usually leave the room as a result.

Respect is extremely important to me and many other people. I honestly believe that life will be easier for everyone if they surround themselves with people who they share a mutual respect with. I also believe that there is a very small percent of people who deserve no respect at all, but that’s just my opinion.