After going through an in-depth reflection on my life, it opened my eyes to how greatly holding respect in high regard has significantly constructed various aspects of my life. Respect has acted as a prime shaper of my life because it has been very important to me in numerous things in everyday life and I didn’t even realize it. It is important to me because it plays a significant role in addressing disputation with other people around me and it’s also a key to many things in life. One example of what respect is key to is success. Whether that be obtaining a job for myself, having a successful intimate relationship, being successful in school, etc. I have to respect my manager or teachers, even if I don’t agree with them to increase my chances of succeeding in that way. In partners, respect is crucial to shaping the relationship in a good or bad way. Even though in particular, one relationship of mine didn’t exactly last, what was successful to me was the fact that I loved and most importantly respected him. I gave him space, listened to him, compromised, built him up, did things I didn’t exactly agree with, for his sake, etc. It was a success for me because personally, I know that I tried my best and respected him in any way I could and that's all I could do. I wanted to make him feel like he mattered to me. Although the respect wasn’t mutual, that also plays into respect because I had to respect myself and leave him, and if I hadn’t have showed respect to him or respected myself in that situation it would have caused a lot of conflicts. In everyday relationships, respect makes me feel valued, and I'm sure it does for everyone else and it brings a sense of peace even with strangers. Respect is fundamental to an abundant quantity of relationships that form my life because to respect is to grasp the fact that the other individual is not you, not a reflection of you, not a version of you, they are their own person and raised differently. Respect was to open my eyes and realize that I need to acknowledge that someone is a unique individual and learn to connect my personal needs to theirs. It was realizing that my job isn’t to change them in the direction I want, but it creates an emotional bond. It helps carry a relationship with anybody when conflict comes up. Even now, if a fast food place is taking a long time I take the time to understand instead of jumping to creating conflict and I think that is respect, opening up your eyes to the fact that even if I didn't understand what was taking them so long or when I don't understand why another car is speeding, that I never really knew the circumstances so had to understand that I don’t understand them. Respect is also very valuable to me because it enables peace and opens many doors in all relationships like trust and security. Respect allows other people to disagree with me but also still allows a sense of other people in my life to have the ability to express things. There are so many conflicts in today's world and society; respect can overall, unite people, so that is why it’s important to me in everyday life.
Well, respect obviously did not come naturally, it is something that I learned. I was socialized into this perspective of respect being necessary socially from many different factors. Respect is shaped in my life based upon values that people around me like family, culture, and many more people, have. The family was my first social bond. Growing up, in my game stage, my parents were never really strict but also didn’t let me do whatever I wanted. One way my parents have constructed me to value respect is by simply respecting me. I started to notice that when I would talk back or negatively approach a disagreement with my dad, he would react in a negative way, but when I would talk to him in a calm way like I wanted him to react with me, his reaction would be far less as extreme. Another way I was socially constructed into respect was I saw certain family members acting disrespectfully and I noticed the negative sanctions it brought and saw how it affected the other person. There are many other instances that I could explain with that but my main point is that I learned by example from them that I should treat others the way I want to be treated. I started wanting my grandma to respond in a more respectful way so that there wasn’t conflict. The school was another huge contribution to being socialized into respect. I remember in elementary school we every single day would repeat a pledge for our school and one part along the lines of it “I will respect myself. I will respect others, and I will respect property.
As I grew older, I realized that there was a norm when it came to respecting socially. Respect is a folkway and not following it can lead to many different negative sanctions as well. I began to realize when I started to be disrespectful that there would be a negative reaction whether that be from my in-group or out-groups. Obviously, respect is stigmatized and it is expected, especially in certain social situations. For instance, at work, I am respectful to customers not just because I want to be successful and keep my job, but for the fact that I want to have a positive impression on them. Of course like Goffman thinks about situations, my interaction with others changes on the context of the situation. It goes along the lines of dramaturgy. It is what I want to present to people. If I am at work, it affects how I act, I am more respectful to people I know less rather than how I may be to a sibling. In public, I don’t wear skimpy clothes because I respect myself and others may perceive it as rebellious. Being disrespectful, in most cases, is being deviant. Different cultures are socialized differently and although America has freedom of speech there are social consequences to not following the norms of that. I perceived that by observing other people in my out-group more specifically struggle;e to achieve what would be looked at as society's norms and fall short.
That then brings me into, caring about what others think. I, like most people, want my given expressions to be positive. If I were to get a negative response from someone I would internalize it and start viewing myself differently, so I think it really comes down to a positive reaction from something like respect, is almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy, There is a norm that is supposed to be followed especially in an ingroup like my friends or grandparents. When my manager points out what I’m doing wrong or a customer is disrespectful in any circumstance, I take it personally and start criticizing myself more than I already do. I try to avoid these reactions through impression management, more specifically using mainly respect. having respect so others don’t think badly of me This relates to the looking-glass self. People in my life act as a looking glass. When they give some sort of validation, I view myself in more of a positive image. I basically lean on people's responses to gain information about myself so am emotionally affected by what they think, and therefore show respect. I think everyone cares about how people view them, these types of norms of how I'm supposed to act in society, help construct a moral development and open my eyes to what is good for other people and what is good for myself. Every culture does have its own way of life so some things that are respectful where I was raised here may be disrespectful but through the people around my culture.
I continue to hold respect as such a significant value in my life because I strongly believe that you should treat others the way you wish to be treated. I think respect is more important than love in any relationship. Everyone is human and we all have different things we do that someone will consider deviant. It is almost inevitable to completely receive positive sanctions all of the time but to me how I react to it is what matters.