Getting the Respect You Deserve
Getting, and knowing that we have gotten respect, depends quite a bit on having an idea of what respect is. “Re-spect” simply means, to look twice. This begs a lot of questions, one being, why can we not just look carefully once instead of having to look twice? And, what is it that we should be looking for? There are a lot of implications of the meaning of “respect,” but I would like to start by dissecting a word that often accompanies respect, “deserve.” “De” as a prefix, means removal or separation. “Serve” comes from the root slave. Slavery is an awkward thing to casually mention, but there is no way around it in understanding the origin of “deserve.” “Deserve,” besides, “Mine, my, and I,” is one of the words used with the most passion. “I deserve better than this!” “You deserve what’s coming to you!” “They deserve to be happy…” There are a few ways in which a separation from being a slave makes sense in the context of what we deserve. A slave resided in a house but did not