The art of being respectful

I'm not perfect, I know that. In fact I'm probably the most annoying and boring person I know. But one thing I will say that I have going for me is that I have decent morals that I always try to stick by.
I strongly believe that being respectful is one of the most important things in life. So what if you've not got the highest grades or the most attention? In my books, if you treat people with respect then you're doing the whole life thing pretty well. So when I come across those who are more about 'saying it how it is', it really frustrates me. It frustrates me so much that I felt like writing a blog post about it.
I've noticed that more often than not, the kind of people who love to give their negative opinion when it's not necessary, try to justify their rude behaviour with the most ridiculous excuses. I know a lot of people won't agree about the invalidity of these excuses, but I personally can't stand seeing people getting kicked while they're down, because of stupid reasons like these:

'But They're so Annoyinggg'

Fair enough if someone has purposely or ignorantly hurt or upset you, defend yourself. But what gives you the right to verbally attack someone on the basis that 'they're annoying'?. Sometimes people don't click together or get on each others' nerves, and that's ok. What's not ok is using your own personal opinion as a reason to make someone's life hell. Just stay away from them and move on with your life. This way you're avoiding negativity completely rather than fighting fire with fire. It's really not that difficult.


'At least I'm not fake'

I imagine this point is more relevant in a school type environment, but it seems that nowadays all anyone cares about is being 'real'. I agree that there are some awful 'fake' people out there who completely suck up to people just to get what they want, but there's a difference between that and sparing someone's feelings. I feel like people don't really understand that being 'real' or 'genuine' doesn't have to mean shoving your every thought in people's faces. I think the quote "What you think about me is none of my business" is very applicable here. Because most of time what you think of someone has nothing to do with them really, it's all to do with your own taste. My point is, there are some things that are ok to keep to yourself! It doesn't make you fake, it makes you polite!


'I'm just in a bad mood ok'

I can't get my head around this excuse. Like I'm sorry you're not feeling great today but I'd rather you didn't bring everyone else down with you thanks. I admit, I might occasionally take my bad mood out on my family, but I always feel awful about it and genuinely try as hard as I can not to. It's the people who see 'I'm in a bad mood' as a plausible excuse that I really don't understand.  How can you benefit from being rude to someone if they're not even the problem?



'Learn how to take a joke'

This one is a bit more difficult. Sometimes you'll say something as a joke and it will be taken the wrong way. It happens a lot, and I am 100% sure I too am guilty of it. However, there are the people who apologise, and then there are the people who seem to have no empathy and completely stick to their guns, not accepting that they've done something wrong.
Everyone has something about themselves or their life that they are sensitive about, so when someone makes a joke about it, it is pretty difficult to laugh along. That's the kind of situation I'm talking about here. It can be frustrating when you don't receive the reaction you were looking for, but sometimes you just have to accept that they're upset, and try your best to rectify your mistake, whether that be by comforting them, or by simply apologising and moving on.


I hope that I managed to arrange the mess in my brain into a somewhat comprehensible piece of writing, and that it didn't sound too conceited or like a telling off. All I wanted from this was to 1. offload a bit of weight off my shoulders and 2. just remind anyone reading this that you never know what is going on in someone's life or mind, so negative or rude words, that are so easy not to say, can have a bigger effect on someone than you might think. If you've read this post and recognised yourself in it somewhere, I'm sure you're a decent person really, but please just make that little bit of effort to be considerate. You'll find that really it's pretty easy to not ruin someone's day.