I Bow as I Respect You As Much As I Respect Myself

I once met someone who told me, “Respect is the basis of every successful relationship. Even for a successful and happy marriage, respect is more important than love.”

The thought left me thinking. And it did have a lasting impact on my mind, and even more so on my life. So much so, that I ended up marrying him…..

And since then this word has inspired us time and again. It somehow creeps its way into our gossip sessions, (pseudo) intellectual discussions, our arguments and most of all in our fights.  We have time and again reached the conclusion that the word respect is used more often than it is understood, by most of us. And time and again we have had to remind ourselves, the true meaning of this word.

So what is respect? Greetings, bows, smiles and in some cases hugs – are generally regarded as day-to-day gestures of respect towards another person. On a higher pedestal, accepting others as they are, with their faults and mistakes, accepting their choices, and in some cases following their footsteps are also considered ways of showing respect. Then there are the oft quoted quotes – ‘respect is earned, not demanded’, ‘respect yourself if you want others to respect you’, ‘treat others with respect if you expect them to treat you with it’ etc etc.

I was once having a debate with a then-yet-to-be-married friend, on the merits vs perils of holy matrimony.  He was arguing that it is not the responsibility of managing a household which scares him, which he has to anyway manage staying alone. But he was worried that marriage would mean spending time, money & energy on additional things which are not his priority. For example, he continued, “I will have to go and attend classical music concerts, because my partner is interested in it. And thus I will end up wasting half my time on such things.”

At that point I had won the argument by confidently declaring that a healthy relationship only requires you to not stop her from going. But in reality it took me a long time, in fact a couple of years may be, to understand the deeper meaning of these emotions. To continue with the same example. If you allow your partner to follow his or her passion, in this case attending a classical music concert, then in my understanding that is only full-filling your responsibility. It doesn’t imply any greater emotion, than the basic responsibility of the relationship. I agree, there are people who may not even do this much, but then that can be the topic for another discussion. Coming back to our example, if you make an attempt to be with your partner for every such concert, that in my opinion is love. You like being with them, sharing time and being happy seeing them enjoy it. That is the satisfaction of love.  

However, being respectful demands something more. The way I look at things, if you really want to show respect, then you must ensure that your partner gets to follow his or her passion. And it is not easy. Because this requires consistency. This requires you create an infrastructure which supports them in meeting all the other responsibilities, while still taking out time for themselves. With you, or without you. Again coming back to the same example, from getting regular information on the upcoming concerts, to arranging the tickets, to taking up extra household work, so that they can sit back and enjoy the concert, without the thoughts of pending work haunting them. Doing some or most of these, consistently, over a period of time, shows that you respect the fact that your partner has an interest, which even though you don’t share, but you surely respect. And even if you have to pay a price for it, you are willing to let the dream bloom. This I think is the most difficult of the options.

Now the next set of obvious questions would be, how does it help me? As an individual? Because even if I show this and even a higher kind of respect for my partner, it may not get reciprocated. I completely agree. It may not. And it is pretty much beyond your control. You can try to earn it, even fight for it. But demanding it may not give desired returns.

Again, from what I have learnt, showing respect to yourself or others, helps you because it gets you in the habit of respecting. You develop the strength and capability to nurture this difficult emotion. However, to be able to earn it back, it is important that you maintain a balance. Show equal amount of respect for your own needs, thoughts and passions. When you do that, things become easier, as you move towards a higher level of being. And higher up the respect you have for yourself and for others, fills up the empty space, so much so that any missing contribution from front doesn’t leave a hollow.

So decide whichever suits you first. You can start showing respect to yourself, and then to others, or move in the opposite direction. But to be able to move up, one has to complete the circle.