What is Respect???

Ever since our childhood, we have always been taught by our parents to respect others. But as the time passes and we go from childhood to adulthood, some of us tend to forget the real meaning of Respect. Respect doesn't mean taking crap from the other person and still not talking back. It means to give respect to the other person and his/her reactions as well as respecting yourself, means to have self-respect and realizing when you have had enough with the person giving you headache. It could be a friend, relative or a partner, we have to set limits for our-selves and stick to that. This way we not only gain self-respect but we also respect the other person by letting them go, because if they are being dis-respectful to you, then clearly you been having fights/ arguments with the person on a routine basis, ending up with a damaged relationship.

Let's look into this a bit deeper. When we are toddlers then we always have our parents to protect us from kids or persons, whom they think can harm or hurt us in someway. That is the way how parents show love and care by looking after what we do and with whom we interact. And even till teenage and adulthood, they always give their feedback about our friends or the group we go out or spend time with. Being a child we always disagree with them, sometimes due to generation gap and sometimes just because we cannot see their point of view. The way parents see things is quiet different from ours, as they have seen world and experienced more ups and downs than us, and being a parent their reaction is always to warn us about what could possibly go wrong. It's normal for a child to not listen to the parents. But that's one way how parents show their respect to us, by showing us the right way but still not being pushy. The way we can show respect to our parents is by listening to them, and even if we don't 100% agree to what they say, still giving a thought to what they tried to explain to us. It will help you open up your mind to more possibilities.

Another way we gain and give respect is being good friends with each other and always offering a helping hand. I must warn you, just like any other relation, you will see many people in friendship will often respect you when they need something, or when they want things to happen in certain way that is promising to them. But, not all fingers are the  same, so you should be good to others and show respect and care. Worry about who is good to you. If someone is consistently being mean to you, and I must add that if they swear on you in someway, then, give them a few chances to save your friendship. But in my general experience, the person who will swear or abuse you in any way once will continue to do that as no-one can change their inherent nature.

Yes we can change our perspective about few people depending upon the situations. For example, if someone is going through a hard time then it's easy for others to judge them, as they don't know how it's like to be in the other one's shoe. But once the hard time is over, many a times, you can see this wonderful person behind the walls whom you can absolutely enjoy being friends with. On the other hand for people who are always in some rage or anger or abusive or swearing, you can't expect much from them, as they have no control on themselves. And they can spit it out anywhere and in front of anyone. By giving them more and more chances you are just losing your own self-respect. Specially for mums, as this kind of behavior could be bad for a child who is still growing and leaning. My advise is, stay away from such people, as its not worth it for one good moment you want to spoil another moment.

Respect is always both ways. You can easily gain it by giving, but on the other hand, you can easily lose it by being dis-respectful to the other person. Life it too short to hate, learn how to love others and first of all Love and respect yourself.

Based on my life experience, Thank you.

Friendship

I couldn't stop thinking about those people or should i call them friends, who are no longer in my life. The reason behind me talking about this topic is that one of my friend was complaining about her friend who doesn’t treat her right. First of all, my dear readers, if someone is not treating you right then just take a break with them there itself. It will allow you to give some time to yourself to figure out what's happening to your friendship. And, it will allow sometime for your friend to figure out if they have been mistreating you in someway and if they still want to be friends with you then they will work on it.

Friendship, as we all know is one of the most wonderful relations we have in our life. Starting from being toddlers to old age, we have friends to help us go through all ups and downs in life. If we are lucky, we will have that one friend throughout our childhood to old age. Childhood friends are like siblings, you can expect them to help you in each way and still have a big argument without worrying about losing the friend. Then come those friends which we make out of choice, like in our teenage, we meet many different types of people. We make some friends due to similarities, and with some we just end up becoming friends without any reason. All friendships are great, as they provide warmth, love, care and security.

I have many friends, but i must say i have only a few who are very close to my heart. There was a time in my life when i had heaps of friends, or i thought they were my friends. But, life's reality made me understand the difference between a friend or colleague or acquaintance. First reality check was when i moved interstate and left my job, it was like 8 out of 10 people were out of my life as they no longer required me, or should i say in a better way, that they no longer required my service at work. I must accept i didn't realize it straightaway, as i was still trying to be in touch and update everyone. But within a few months  I understood those were not my friends, those were just my colleagues who were pretending to be friends as that allows them to ask me for favors. I must admit  I felt sad, but better late than never, so I let them go.

Acquaintance could mean different things to different people according to their understanding, according to me it means those people who are known to you and are good to hangout with but once in a while. I myself became a victim of it, as i was being acquaintance to someone. One of the girls whom I knew would see me once in awhile, mostly when she would have no one to go to or talk to I guess, but will not be available when I want to do something or catch-up. It took me some time to understand that she had me in her "once in a while" call list. I didn't end friendship with her but instead put her in my "once in a while" list. And once I understood the clear meaning of these type of people now i must say I have heaps in "once in a while" list.

I must mention in my life I have also had some friends who were very nice and good friends, but after few years things changed, and instead of friendship there was anger. Till date I can't understand how it all changed but when I look back I try to only think of good moments. I remember when things changed in between us. In my effort to save our friendship I tried alot to fix things and even apologized to her so that we can over come the bad time. But it just wasn't enough for her. Its been few years to this incident, still when I think of her i still cant understand what went wrong there, as there wasn't any big reason or argument but after few attempts I stopped. I just couldn't push myself to do any more for her, not because i didn't wanted to, but because it just wasn't worth it. Friendship also requires forgiveness.

Always cherish your friendship, remember, if they are not treating you the right way, then let them go. Trust your friends but also have self respect. If they love you and want to continue the friendship then they will take the effort as well. In a friendship if you think you are always explaining yourself then it's better to finish it, as it means you two have no understanding. Friends, without whom i cannot imagine my life. We all need friends, they make us laugh and cry at the same time, sometimes due to a terrible joke or sometimes by just being a friend. Thanks to all the wonderful people who were always around me and helped me in life and made me smile. More than that, thanks to those who left me, and made me cry, since if it wasn't up-to these people I would have never have understood the real meaning of friendship and who my true friends are.


Enjoy reading, would love your comments. Thank you. :)