Many of us walk around with a hefty chip on or shoulders and noses in the air, using our confidence as an excuse to withhold the respect we owe to all people if they haven’t “earned” it. I think that we hear the good advice of drawing lines between ourselves and toxic personalities, then take it to an extreme, expecting perfection from an individual before we deem them worthy of our reverence. This impulsive judgement actually creates more dysfunctional, pathetic people and only contributes to the reasons we find them unworthy of our time, attention, or energy.
If a man is helpless and unsuccessful, complaining, dragging others down with him, and basking in his own filth, and we turn away disgustedly, how will he ever learn the art of respecting himself? Unknowing of his own disease, he will continue to leach the earth for attention, whining and hoping good things will come to him, because he has never been shown what it feels like to be respected, valued, and admired. He hasn’t known another who respects themselves or seen the effortless art of living they gracefully exude. He has simply never been given the tools to grow
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We must instead walk around seeing not the current state of others, but their finest potential. Much like the energy we drive into self-improvement each day, the notice and care directed toward someone who is naive will allow them to grow into a whole different creature; one who breathes intentionality and seeks wisdom.
We were each once helpless and vile, with nothing to offer the world, yet someone fed us, nurtured us, and held us. We became the high-and-mighty-beings we hold ourselves to be today partially by our own accord, but more so by the patience of a hundred others who knew we had potential to one day support ourselves and deserve their respect.
Therefore, we may limit our time spent around those who exhaust and frustrate us, but we may never deny them their dignity, treating them as so insignificant that they do not even deserve our gaze.
If we acted as though everyone were already a king or queen or the most interesting person on earth, I wonder how many of these perceptions would evolve into reality with time.