What is it? For our use today, let’s understand.

Respect is used as a verb.

1: to consider worthy of high regard.

2: to refrain from interfering with.

As in

please respect their privacy

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REGARD, RESPECT, ESTEEM, and ADMIRE all mean to recognize the worth of a person or thing.

REGARD is a general term that is usually qualified.

As in

he is highly regarded in the profession.

RESPECT implies a considered evaluation or estimation.

As in

after many years they came to respect her views.

ESTEEM implies greater warmth of feeling accompanying a high valuation.

As in

no citizen of the town was more highly esteemed.

ADMIRE suggests usually enthusiastic appreciation and often deep affection.

As in

a friend that I truly admire.

I have a great concern as we progress into our modern world. As we witness the ways of our old world crumble to make way for a more progressive ideology, we can witness a decrease in everyone’s respect they might have for others and even private property rights. The lack of respect for people’s unalienable rights keeps growing at an alarming rate. This should make us all pause and examine some of the underlying conditions causing this lack of respect in our culture. We are now living in a world full of narcissistic personalities concerned with nothing more than what makes them feel good, jacked up on fame and fortune that most people will never attain anyway.

When we look deeper at this, we can see how many skilled individuals get told, that they don’t have what it takes, so they simply give up and never attain that higher potential they feel inside of them. The lack of respect for themselves makes them seek approval from the very people that cause most of the problems in our world today.

Respect is an odd thing, so many think that they should automatically receive respect, in most cases because of position or title. This is so far from the truth! Respect is earned and yes, we all understand that when we first meet someone, we offer a certain amount of respect as a gesture of friendship, and it has been a societal trend in most cases. Respect is the glue that holds it all together.

Another thing about respect is that if you don’t respect yourself first, it is highly likely that you will never respect anything or anyone. If you do not respect yourself, ask yourself what is holding you back from holding yourself worthy of high regard. This is the first step in your recovery process. Learn to respect yourself.

So, how do we learn to respect ourselves? This starts with setting healthy boundaries. Respect itself is a healthy boundary. When we learn to set boundaries, it allows our self-confidence to grow and in turn, our self-respect grows as well. When we learn how to make the right choices not based solely on the need to fit in or please anyone. Boundaries will help us grow in ways that we would never have thought were possible before. When we build our confidence, we feel better about who we are and that allows us to respect others as well.

It is time that we all face the fact that we need to stand firm on our rights and abilities. This means that we should educate ourselves and understand our world better. When we are educated on the topics that drive our world, we will feel better about how and why we interact with our world. We must take pride in our abilities and not let others undermine the contributions that we offer. We must always be willing to take the time for others who might not be as advanced in understanding or education as we might be.

Our world is crying out with fear, anger, greed, and negativity and this is a breeding ground for the lack of respect that we are facing in today’s culture.