Love & Respect!

                           

   A couple of days ago in the Gym, I was doing stair climbing on a machine. As I started to do the exercise, suddenly, I heard someone murmuring .A kid, who might be around 6 or 7 years old, was struggling to start the exercise machine. His dad was doing cycling, close to him, and his elder sister was doing exercise on the machine next to me. Now, on my right was the helpless kid and on the left, was his sister. He asked his sister to help him, but she whined and then replied, read the instructions. The poor young boy tried again, but could not succeed.  Again he asked, now his sister was more furious than an over boiled cup of water, and shouted at him, go figure it out yourself.

The kid’s dad heard the conversation and requested his daughter to help him, but she refused to help her brother and made an excuse;

“I don’t know what the problem in the machine is.”

 I was watching the whole incident since the beginning, and thought, I should interfere in this matter.

                                        “Why didn’t you help your little brother?,” I asked the girl. She felt a little bit ashamed and then helped her little brother. After helping to her brother, she said, he always makes fun of me, and never respects me as an elder sister that’s why; I did not want to help him. I thought for a while and analyzed her statement; she was right in some sense.

Why, he is not giving you respect? Have you ever thought about this?

                                           I asked the girl. She has no absolute answer for my question; she murmured for few seconds and then looked confused. I explained to her, he is your younger brother; he needs your love and care, if you help him at the time of his struggles and show him that you love and do care for him. I am pretty sure he will give you respect. She looked sort of convinced with my ideas and shook her head with her approval.

                                        But, this incident reminded me too about a situation, which happens very often at my home. There is a 6 year difference between my two son’s ages. My younger son, who is 11 years old, always fights with his 17 years old brother. I noticed this many times, when my younger son asks for help from the elder one, he always refuses and sometimes makes fun of his brother. The younger one also fights with him when he gets a chance, or doesn’t listen to his elder brother when he asks him to do small house chores that were assigned to him.

                                 One day, my younger son was playing a video game and he was trying very hard to set up the game. Although he gave his one-hundred percent concentration, he could not succeed. After trying a couple of times, he got frustrated and asked for the help of my elder son. As usual, he blindly refused without even looking at the problem or listening to him completely. Now, my younger son asked me to help; I tried my best, but could not solve his problem. I advised him to call his elder brother. He then replied, I already spoke to him but he refused to help me.

“What exactly did you said to him?” I asked. He looked a little surprised from my question and said; I called his name and said, “Can you fix this problem?”

                             “What did you expect by the way that you asked him?” He had no answer for this. How would you ask for help in your class from your teacher? I asked him again. I would say, “Mam, Could you please help me,” he said. “What did you say, when she helped you?” I asked. I always say, “Thanks Mam”, he replied.

                        I explained him that in school you don’t expect anything for granted; you request for help and pay full respect to the person whom you are taking help and advice from, but at home while talking with your elder brother, you neither showed your respect nor showed thanks.

                                  I advised him to go again and say, “Hey brother, Could you please help me? I am sure that you will.” He listened carefully, and did exactly what I told him. After a couple of minutes, I checked on him, and found that he got the problem fixed.

The wheels of justice turn slowly.

                              30 minutes after this incident, I heard a shout from my elder son. He was asking my younger son to bring water for him, but my younger son was refusing his request. When my elder son saw me, he complained that his brother wasn’t doing what he demanded him to do.

   “What did you say to your younger brother?”

                        I asked him. I asked him to bring me some water, he replied. I asked the way you said to him, if I say in the same way, “Hey, go and bring water for me,” how you would feel? He thought for a while, and said, I would feel a little insulted. Now, if I said “Hey!  Son, could you please bring water for me?”, how would you feel? He said, I would feel that you are asking with love.

                          Now you’ve got it, I said. When you are asking something from your younger brother, you have to show your love and, when you need some help from an elder, you have to show your respect. He listened very carefully and thanked me for this lesson of life.

This incident reminds me of how we behave with others.

How husbands treat their wives or vice versa. I am sure that if a husband shows love to his wife, she will definitely show respect to her husband.

                         The same thing occurs when you are doing your job: a boss needs respect from his/her subordinate and in return, a supervisor will need to show care towards his/her employee. If these things are missing, friction will abruptly start.

At the end of the day, we are human beings that bind with the rules.

And rule is ….Give & Take!

There is no love without respect

OR

There is no respect without love!!

By 

Kapil Kumar 

Note: “Opinions expressed are those of the authors, and are not official statements. Resemblance to any person, incident or place is purely coincidental.' ”