Love & Respect

“It is better to be respected than to be loved; because true love cannot exist without respect.”

Through familial, cultural, religious and traditional teachings we have been incorrectly conditioned to earn respect from others. This means we have to prioritize others over our Self which as a result we must become dependent and reliant on others. When one becomes dependent and reliant on others one opens one’s Self up to being controlled, abused and most commonly disrespected by others. Hence the reason why Theory of Self-Relativity categorized “Dependency & Reliance” as one of the 10-Enemies of self-improvement.

On other occasions, we have also been taught that one must demand respect; however, the only way that one could demand respect is by making others become dependent and reliant on one’s Self. For example, one must create monetary dependency, emotional dependency or authoritarian ruling in order to force others to respect the person.

However, as stated in Theory of Self-Relativity, “Respect is neither earned nor demanded; respect must be required and enforced.” Requiring respect doesn’t mean forcing people to respect us; requiring respect means that if someone is disrespectful we set the borders and boundaries that people cannot cross and either they adhere to our requirements or we will not accept having a relationship with them. Once people respect our boundaries they will then learn to love us for our Self and not give us conditional-love according to our neediness and compliance with their requirements.

When we don’t focus on respect or disrespect; we can then focus on true-love.