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Today's
Meditation:
It's
almost unbelievable how quickly prejudice and lack of
respect can spread. I never want to be a person who
doesn't respect the lives and views and beliefs of other
people, for I've come to learn that theirs are just as
valid as mine are. The fact that someone disagrees
with me does not mean that they're wrong and I'm
right--and I must always respect views that were born in
different cultures among different people living different
realities.
Having
respect for others doesn't mean that you have to adopt
their beliefs or live life in their way. It doesn't
mean that you invalidate your own feelings or
thoughts. It simply means that you recognize that we
all come from different places, different families,
different cultures, and different traditions, and someone
who disagrees with me isn't necessarily a threat to me or
my way of life.
A
lack of respect for others shows itself in our lives as a
lack of learning and growth in our own lives. We
cannot learn from anyone whom we don't respect, and
there's so much to learn from people who have been brought
up in different worlds than us. If we show prejudice
towards any group or groups, then we're showing the world
one of the limitations of our own minds and lives, and
it's not a pretty thing to be showing around.
If
we want there to be peace in this world, if we want love
and compassion to spread, if we want people to get along
with one another and help each other out as a matter of
course, then there must be respect among and between all
the groups that we've come to differentiate based on skin
color, origin, language, religion, etc. We must be
the bearers of respect if we want to contribute to the
peace, love, and compassion of the world.
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