Respect is Given. Trust is Earned.

A lot of people adhere to the rule "You have to earn respect to get it," but I've always had an issue with that rule. What if you don't know someone long enough to for either of you to earn the other person's respect? Does that mean that neither of you should respect the other? I don't like that option.

I live by the motto "Respect is given. Trust is earned."

I believe that it is a basic human courtesy to respect other people that you come in contact with.You shouldn't have to know someone for a significant amount of time before you regard them as an equal. Whether it is the peppy girl at school, or the grungy guy working on my car, the two-year-old asking me to answer his toy telephone, or the widow-woman working in her garden. We should all be considerate that everyone is going through something in their lives (whether we can personally relate to it or not) and that we should respect them as a person. I'm not saying that you have to like everything that people do. I'm more realistic than that. I know that you won't like everything that anyone does; however, I do think we should all treat each other with basic human courtesies.
* I want to make it clear that just because everyone starts off with my respect does not mean that my respect cannot be diminished. Without going into too much detail, I will say that there have been people in my life who I respected at one time, but then circumstances changed and they acted in ways that I thought were grossly inappropriate and uncalled for. In cases like this, I still treated the person with civility, but I no longer respected them.
 I might not trust you as far as I can throw you, but I will respect you (until you give me a reason not to). 

Speaking of trust...

It takes time for me to truly trust someone. True, there are those who I click with and trust quickly, but for the most part it takes time to earn my trust. Even if I think you are an overall good person, it may take me quite some time to feel comfortable enough to trust you. I need to know that I can tell you my secrets and not have you running off to tell everyone else; I need to know that you can treat people decently no matter their position in life; I need to know that you will have my back in tough situations instead of only sticking with me during the good times. To some, this might sound like a lot, but I feel like these are fundamental in building trust.
As long as it takes to earn, my trust can be lost just as quickly as my respect can. Lying to me, treating people badly for no reason, and other activities are good ways to lose my trust (or never gain it in the first place). It is possible to re-earn my trust once it has been lost, but that takes twice as long as the first time, and I will not feel as confident in our bond as I did before.


Like I said, I abide by the notion that respect is given and trust has to be earned. I understand that not everyone lives this way, but I do think that we should all give people the basic human courtesies that they deserve, no matter our personal opinions of them. This may seem like an odd post, but believe me when I say that I have reasons for writing about the topic at hand. What do you think? Do I have a non-sensical philosophy? Am I being unreasonable with my expectations of other people? What motto do you live by when it comes to other people?