Respecting people for what they are

My new year's resolution this year was to respect people more. It's been 7 months and it wasn't as hard as I initially thought it would be. Though I've failed a lot, it has [positively] changed the way I look at people.

Is it easy to respect someone who lies a lot? Not for me. I've always found it difficult to respect people whose actions don't fit my model of a nice person. My rationale: they don't deserve respect.

But people deserve respect for what they are: people. Just because they don't fit my good-person-model doesn't make them anything less.

It's quite easy to judge someone based off their actions. Ever since I've forced myself to respect people more, I've been able to put myself in their shoes, and empathize with greater ease. And the result has always been more pleasant than it would have been otherwise. 😊

PS: I'm not implying that one must put up with liars. Just don't be disrespectful!