Respect

Respect in your workplace

There is significant focus on diversity in workplaces at present. I have lost count of how many conversations I’ve heard about how we need to tolerate differences.

I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.
Albert Einstein

Tolerance

Is tolerance our highest goal as a society? In our families? Our friendships? Have you heard also the statements about how we need to be more tolerant of each other? How we must tolerate other cultures? Other belief systems? Other ways of life?

To me it always sounds so patronising and disrespectful to assume that someone is so far beneath my own moral or social standing that I merely ‘tolerate’ or put up with their existence.

Is this really the best we can do?

I always imagine that this ‘tolerant’ attitude is accompanied by intense eye rolling and a sideways thrust of the hip. But is this really the best that we can do when we notice differences between ourselves and others?

Instead of tolerance, could we try respect?

Respect for our differences
Respect for their choices
Respect for them

Can’t we see ourselves as being separate enough to be allowed to have our own identities and therefore make different choices? And yet realise that we are similar as well, in that we are all just working through life, doing the best we can to be true to ourselves.

Their differences are not about you

How they live their life, what they believe in, who they pray to, or who they go to bed with is not about you at all. So, don’t get all up inside someone else’s business. Be mindful of your own business and respect whatever life others have chosen to live for themselves.

There are some people who always seem angry and continuously look for conflict. Walk away; the battle they are fighting isn’t with you, it is with themselves.
Unknown