Deleting a folder with its entire content on your MacBook is a routine decluttering task until it becomes a statement of your integrity. Yesterday, a friend returned your MacBook which they had borrowed for about 48 hours. As they handed it to you, they assured you that their files are safely backed up to Google Drive.
Now, you opened your MacBook and their folder stares at you on the desktop. Without opening the folder, in two clicks, you sent it to the recycle bin and emptied the bin.
They didn’t mention that the files were sensitive or confidential; it is your computer, so you have the privilege or even the right to open the folder and the enclosed files, peeking into their life, like someone standing at a closed door and looking in a room through a keyhole, satisfying your curiosity.
Respect
Yet, on your own honour, you made a deliberate choice to shut yourself out of a business that was not yours. You have done this for only one reason – respect for your friend’s privacy.
Respect transcends the mere gesture of curtseying to greet people or prefacing their names with fancy titles. The diverse shades of respect find expression in our words and our silence, in our actions and in action.
The discipline of attentive listening when you are in a conversation is a signal of respect. To restrain from interrupting and wait for the other person to conclude their thoughts before you respond is to show regard for their perspective, even if it differs from yours; it is to tell them that you acknowledge their voice matters.
To respect the people around you is to not speak ill of the choices they have made to their face or behind them, even if you would have made a different choice; it is to not utter words that make others feel small.
A professional who respects his clients is the one who delivers tasks in a timely manner without waiting for endless reminders or the use of threats before completing the task they have been paid for.
Religious leaders who respect their congregation love cheerful givers like the God they profess. Manipulative homilies and the use of scriptural curses to pressure people into offertories undermine respect and distort the essence of faith.
Respect for boundaries is one of the lifelines of a healthy relationship between two people, each person reserving the right to their personal space where the other does not intrude, no matter how mutually immersed their lives are.
Relationships can easily go south when the unseen line is crossed. The interconnectedness of our digital world often blurs the lines between personal and shared spaces. This demands that individuals be assertive about their personal spaces and carefully decide where to place the seat for those we welcome into our lives.
In conclusion, we can transform relationships, reduce misunderstanding and promote peaceful coexistence with the culture of respect. The world is uptight with enough conflict as it is. We could welcome more decorum into it if we place premium value on respect for others.
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