There is much in this life that is very difficult, but to treat others with kindness and friendliness and respect is truly not all that difficult. Of course, not all behaviors will be viewed as respectful by all people. Some people respect the honest truth, so long as one is not being insulting and cruel, others respect indirect commentary that allows them to save face. Some people feel respected by the good feelings of others being made open and obvious, while others respect privacy and discretion. How others feel loved and respected matters a great deal on what they value and on how they recognize the love and respect of others.

That said, loving and respecting others is not a particularly difficult task. If we want to know how others are, we simply have to take the time to observe them and get to know them, and most importantly listen to them. We don’t learn about people by telling them who they are or what they are, but rather by listening to them and hearing and seeing them in action. Again, this is not a complicated task. If we genuinely care about others, it will be no difficult thing to wish to understand people and to take the time and effort necessary to show that we do think highly of them, by seeing how they recognize love and respect.

Of course, there is one assumption about the ease of loving and respecting others in any fashion, and that is caring about what they think. This is not a difficult matter, but it can be rare. Most of the time we do not love and respect others, it is simply because we do not care. There are a variety of reasons why we do not care–others may have simpoly crossed the line so many times that we cease to care to protect ourselves from being hurt. This is regretfully common, not least because we often assume that others are going to respect us as we wish to be respected and “read our minds” so to speak, rather than setting clear boundaries and expectations. Worse, some people tend to think that an open discussion of boundaries is disrespectful and aggressivee, simply because they are not in the practice of respecting others.

Communication is a challenging task, and one cannot assume that one will be understood by others. Loving and respecting others, though, does not necessarily depend on our ability to communicate with others (though the recognition of that love and respect makes life vastly easier). The love and respect we show to others depends on us–on our conversation and conduct, on the behaviors we cultivate and the behaviors we avoid. All of that is within our control, and enitrely so. How others respond to that conduct is within their control, and while we may have some influence over that conduct, it is beyond our control.

Therefore, let us do what we can to respect and love others, a task that is easy if we would only try. Why do we not try is, perhaps, a subject for another night, but the fact that it is not so difficult a task as we presume is not a difficult one. We should be aware of what is within our hearts (and if we are not, then we need to examine ourselves closely). So long as we do so, nothing should be beyond treating others with respect, even if that respect includes setting boundaries to make sure that others do not step over any boundary lines by ignorance, and suffer the penalty of sin without having had malice in their hearts.