Power wanted yet never received
Trust is like an eraser, it gets smaller and smaller after every mistake. People all around the world usually crave for power. Do you? When you want power, you usually want respect and recognition, right? That’s what I wanted. I wanted respect and to be noticed as an independent individual. Gaining respect is challenging and what makes it challenging is getting that respect from your parents, family, and friends.
It’s hard when I get mad at my parents when they don’t show me respect. I always tell myself, “I’m never speaking to them ever again.” However, that’s not even true, it’s more like a reflex from getting so angry. I always ask myself how come when my parents get mad they yell, say what they feel, and walk away, but when I get mad and I yell, say what I feel and walk away, I am then told to be quiet and respect them? Where’s their respect towards me? We’re all human, and like them, I’m a grown up too. Why is gaining my parents, respect so difficult? Is it because they don’t want to see me grow up too fast? Unfortunately, my parents aren’t the only ones I didn’t receive respect from, but also some of my family members like my cousins.
Some of my other families I’ve experienced this with are my cousins. We all grew up together. We would stop by the deli before going to the park and buy “Big Juice” in advance. The park is not only where we ran around to just have fun, but to compete as well. We competed in who could go the fastest on the monkey bars and who could run from the slide to the swings the quickest. Then came the time when we would go to their home and they would pick on me. It was three cousins against one. There were times they wouldn’t let me play out of spite. I never did that to them when they came to my home. I would show them everything I had for them to play with. I had respect for them. The challenge is getting them to respect me now at this age. However, what I noticed was, I will never get their full respect, even though I give them mine, because they have no respect. Why would someone like me want their respect when they wont respect anyone else? Dealing with family and respect is hard. It’s a lot more personal. What doesn’t really come to me, but somehow matters at the moment is respect from friends because they are supposed to be my safe circle.
Friends are like an escape to a whole other world. I can act a certain way with them that I can’t with family. You begin to like one thing about each other and then another. Next thing you know you’re sharing secrets. Getting respect from friends is hard because they are almost the same person as you, which brings me to a story of two friends. I was extremely close to two girls named Khyrissa and Gabby. At one point, in my junior year of high school, Khyrissa stopped coming to school. I started to get worried, so I spoke to her. It turns out she was too busy hanging out with the wrong crowd and smoking weed. I tried to have a serious talk with her, and her response was, “you do you and I do me.” How can someone have respect for you if they won’t even have respect for the care you give them? I don’t have to care for her, but I did because we were friends. So really she just saved me time. Another friend was Gabby and the way I didn’t get respect from her was by her talking to me and treating me wrong. She would yell and talk to me wrong in front of people. After that day she spoke to me wrong, I knew she would never have the respect towards me that I wanted and as it should be. I said goodbye.
Gaining respect isn’t easy especially when you want it most from the people close to you like your parents, family, and friends. It’s easy to disrespect someone, but the challenge that comes with gaining respect is the hardest thing to go through. It’s still a challenge I yet haven’t overcome, and I believe I never will.
