Respect

In my previous post about trust, I pondered whether we would not be better off replacing the concept of 'love' with 'trust'. [link] A few reasons come to mind: love is often confused with other feelings, like chemistry; love is prone to a quick peak and a long decline; love is a catch-all word for a lot of interpersonal stuff, like sex.

Trust, on the other hand, appears to me to be more tangible, if less easily described. Trust often starts slowly, and improves over time. Trust can exist between any two people even without other relationship connections. And trust builds upon itself, with or without love.

Thinking about these two leads me to believe that they need a third leg to create a triumverate, namely respect. In this circumstance, the noun respect I stipulate to mean:

...esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability.

The key phrase there is sense of, because nailing down precisely what is respect, is not easy. Slippery beastie, this respect. One way I've figured to describe it is thus:

If I have respect for someone, I value their opinion approximately the same as mine. If I really respect them, I will likely put their opinion above mine. The subtext to this is an assumption that some people can be given the benefit of the doubt - those we respect - and some cannot.

And there we are, edging into the territory of trust again. If we trust someone, and we respect them, we're likely to let them adjudicate the big life decisions. Less respect than trust, and we'll listen to what they say. Less trust than respect, and we'll listen, but act on our own. In a sense, they're like the bass and treble control on a radio, they're variables of a greater whole.

The idea of the three of them forming a tripod on which lasting relationships grow appeals to me.

Clearly, I'm still unable to articulate precisely what's going on here. In general though, in relationships, I think the ideal progression is:

Respect -----> Trust -------------------->Love.

Funny, that looks like the (admittedly few) really good relationships I've experienced.




If you want a lot of words and some glimmers of understanding, here's a philosophic description of respect .[link]

Illustration from here. [link]