We should respect the old. This statement is considered as true and logical to many people, not to me! First of all I should draw a line between respecting and acting with respect, as I believe there is a difference. This is my idea so these words may not be precise enough for you. I think acting with respect is when you are not rude or cheeky and you act politely and with gentleness. For example someone says hello to you and you answer at least with a nod and smile or someone says thank you and you say you’re welcome. You act with some kind of respect when the other person is not your friend nor your enemy.
But in my idea, respecting somebody is something else. When you respect someone, you consider him/her as superior to yourself. You act more than polite around that person. You may behave with devotion and sacrifice. Or at least this is what people think of when they say we should respect the old. Let me give an example to clarify the issue. Many people think that if there are somewhere that lacks vacant seats and there is an old person standing, they should give their seat and stand as a respect to the old. At first I should say this is not helping! When you help someone you don’t give away something you need, this is sacrificing. Not if it’s a bad thing but if there is a believe that we should help others, certainly no one can expect others to sacrifice!
Also I understand that if I have lots of energy and it doesn’t bother my to stand for a while, I can give my seat and stand but if it’s after a long day of working and when I’m as tired as anyone else or even exhausted, there is no reason to sacrifice while I’m in need of a little rest.
But after all if we want to be logical and rational isn’t it more logical that the old should give their seat to the young?! Because the young is the source of work and production and the old is more of a consumer! This was just an example and as you saw there can be lots of problems but this is something that have many instances.
Once I had this discussion with a friend and his reason was that we should respect the old now so we will be respected when we are old too, and I said that I have a life insurance so I don’t need help and also I don’t want to be respected after all! There is a problem in many of middle east countries that some people think they should respect someone and as you will find anything you’re after, they find someone who thinks others should respect him and the problems begin!
I think these problems are more related to custom and tradition than the way people think because I see many people expect such things without a good reason. To me, age numbers are just some digits. They don’t have value by themselves. If age numbers could result in respect, we should all respect tortoises as they live more than 120 years!
::samic::