After a few days of rest, I return to writing, which for me is a way of getting in touch with people from different places and with different thoughts on different subjects.
In the last few days, the theme “respect” has been very present in my mind and in matters related to school, family, friends, work, government and everything else we can imagine.
One of the definitions for the word respect is “the demonstration of a positive feeling for a person or an entity”. An entity is understood to be a religion, nation or even a company.
We all like to think about our rights, but the thought that we have duties usually displeases us and this displeasure seems to be becoming a reality lately, and this can make us feel less and less with more and more duties.
That was exactly the reason that made me go back a little in time to remember how things were in the past. We can think of the school, which received the teacher as an authority. He was the holder of the knowledge that would be passed on to the students to prepare them in technical and intellectual terms, guaranteeing their future. At the same time, moral values ​​of respect for school, family and society were passed on. Today, we see the devaluation of one of the oldest professions and responsible for the training of professionals in any area.
We realized that with progress, some basic concepts of respect began to be transformed. The reasons for this transformation are numerous and I would like to talk about one of them, which is mentioned by Milton Felipeli, writer and broadcaster, in the book “As Forças Positivas do Homem”. He says respect is a sign of love. So if there is no respect, then there is no love either.
If we analyze the way things are happening in the current world, could we say that there is a lack of respect as well as love? I think so. A part of humanity has lived only in terms of its own navel, spreading around itself the egocentrism that dominates its own life. I do not believe it is the largest part, but the smallest part that has, despite seeming paradoxical, received a lot of attention.
And how can we contribute so that respect returns to being of real importance in the lives of men?
Among so many things, we can analyze our attitudes towards prejudice. Prejudice is nothing more than the lack of respect for the different, for what thinks and acts differently from us. And that doesn't mean being right or wrong, it just means being different. If we don't respect, we don't love.
Important to remember that we can disagree with other people's thoughts and that's not disrespect, it's just disagreement. Respect is in accepting the different, accepting that each one has their own experiences and knowledge and evolution is individual. Therefore, each of us is a unique being on the way to perfection. The rule is to respect the same way we would like to be respected.
And I end with the answer to the question asked in the theme: Where is respect? Respect continues where it has always been with the function it has always had, we are the ones who have forgotten to use it in our daily lives.
That's why I want everyone to have a full week, month and year in the exercise of respect for the different through the practice of love.
