How Do You Treat People?

August 4th, 2008 · No Comments

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being.

Johann Wolfgang von Geothe

If I were to put this quote into practice, I think the first thing I would do is to practice not making assumptions about the people I meet or even see passing by. It seems to be our nature, or maybe it’s the way we are raised, but we make assumptions based on how people look (fat vs. thin, tall vs. short), how they are dressed, what type of car they drive, language they use, etc. Our assumptions could be, and I would guess often are, incorrect. So number one is stop making assumptions.

Next, I would be more polite to everyone. People often treat those we think of as having a higher station in life than ourselves more politely and respectfully. What if we treated everyone that way?

And what if we treated everyone as being fully capable and fully responsible of reaching their potential and being functioning members of society? It’s like the classroom experiment they did. Some teachers were told the class they were teaching was full of bright over achievers, so they treated the kids that way. They expected more of them. And, guess what? The kids responded and met the expectations. Even though they were average kids, they met the higher expectations. How do we institute this into society as a whole?

One thing I do think is that we should apply this inspirational quote to ourselves. We should treat ourselves as if we are what we ought to be.

Just think if we did that and that helped us become what we are capable of being. The first thing I can think of here is to watch our self talk. We must not be mean to ourselves, put ourselves down, or call ourselves names. We sure wouldn’t do that to someone we respect. Why do it to ourselves?

Also, we shouldn’t allow ourselves off the hook too easily when we fail. We should expect more of ourselves. So, how do I go about expecting more from myself? I start doing the hard stuff in a disciplined way and focus. And I quit messing around.

Tags: Johann Wolfgang von Geothe