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“I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.”
-Jackie Robinson
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Respect by definition is the feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by his or her abilities, qualities, or achievements. Basically in simpler terms it means you like what someone can do or what they can achieve but you don’t necessarily like that person.
You don’t have to like the people you are around nor do you have to be best friends with them if you’re given an assignment with them. BUT just because you don’t like them doesn’t mean you can treat them like trash. You can be respectful while not liking people. You can engage in conversation with them while doing what you have to do in school. This is can be considered to be a professional attitude. You do what you have to do and respect people.
Having a professional attitude basically tells people that you are able to put your differences aside and be adults about a situation. Which throughout life is something you're going to have to do, you have to work with group mates you don’t like, be around people that may not please you as much as others do. It’s just one of those things you have to deal with.
But before you can respect anyone around you, you have to learn to respect yourself. Its just as important that you respect yourself as you do others because this sets a standard on how you should be treated (or similar to it). This can include:
- Doing all assignments with integrity
- Asking for help when you need it*
- Just treat yourself right and don’t beat yourself up over trivial matters or situations
That second bullet is extremely important (that’s why there’s a star) because if you don’t respect yourself enough to get up and ask for help when you need it, you are going to end up not doing well at all. I’ve had previous experience with not respecting my work and not doing things with integrity because I felt like some classes were a joke and I didn’t put effort into the work, so this caused my grades to drop dramatically. Not doing the work assigned is also disrespectful to the teacher who made the effort to make the assignments and if you don’t do it, it shows everyone around you that you don’t respect your grades and yourself enough to do it.
Overall, You have to start with yourself to get anywhere with anyone else because you’re first before anything. You have to mold yourself and learn to respect yourself and with that respect you will go far. People will respect you with that confidence you have. But remember the one thing we learned since the beginning of kindergarten, Treat others as you would treat yourself.
Written by Isabel Etchevarria
Written by Isabel Etchevarria