Punchy,
As of this morning your mom is 33 weeks pregnant. I am not sure how it will be but we are excited to see you when you are ready to come.
Last night I was talking to your mom about some things and there were a couple of things that came up that I feel I need to write about the next couple of days. Today we will talk about feeling superior and acting that way.
In life, you will make choices or have an opinion which you feel is the right one. You make like a certain brand of car or another, or think that taking this class or that one is better, you may even believe that doing things a certain way is the better way to do it. It is human nature to do something, or believe something and believe that it makes you better than others. There is a lot of talk about discrimination but some of that is built into who we are as humans. Telling the difference between people helped us in our history. I will not say that you will not feel that what you believe or do is better than what others believe or do but I will tell you this. You are expected to treat people as your equal no matter what.
People will not always agree with what you believe or do. I cannot say that I always will believe the same or agree with your choices, but I respect your right to do it. You may think that this brand of car is better than that, or this sport is better than that one, or that your classes are better or make you smarter than someone else. However you have no right to treat someone as your lesser as a result of it. Let me say this again to be perfectly clear. You have the right to feel superior. that is part of being human, what you do not is treating someone as lesser as a result of it.
If you have a friend who is of a certain faith and you are not of that faith, you may feel that you are right and they are wrong. Your feelings are allowed, what is not is for you to treat them any less because of it. You may have a friend who says Fords are the best cars, and you think Dodge is better. You do not have to agree, yes you can make little jokes about it but you are not allowed to call them stupid or get into fights about it because you do not agree.
Discussion is a good thing, talking about the virtues of both is a good thing, and eventually you may have to come to a place where you do not agree but walk away from the argument for the sake of keeping friendships. I have many people in my life that I do not agree with, they share some opinions I do not feel are the right ones, but rather than throwing them out of my life completely, I listen to it, hear what they have to say, and if I do not find value in it, let it go. Why keep these friendships if I do not agree 100% with them? Because there is something that we DO have in common like sword, or Heavy Athletics, or a shared history, and it is better to have allies I may not agree 100% with than to be alone in what seems to feel like a huge world already.
Think what you will. Speak it if you must, but I will not ever put up with you treating someone less than you are because they do not agree with you. You may love the arts and think that math is dumb, but do not treat those who love it less than you. As we have talked about before you are allowed to dislike the opinion someone has, you may dislike their actions, but never treat them as your inferiors unless you wish to be treated as such by others. When I was working at the U I had a team, each of them "worked for me" but the moment I acted like they were my inferiors, I lost their respect. We all had different jobs, and I was responsible for the work they did, but that did not make me better or higher than they were, just different. Embrace the differences. You may think of feel you are better than your peers, but treat others as your equals and they are more likely to do the same to you.
It may not always work, but you must do what you can, treat people as your equals and they will rise to the occasion, or at least you can walk away knowing that you did not treat them as your lessers when no man is your lesser. We all have talents, we all have things that make us, us, we all are different, but in that never, treat someone less because they are different from you.
-Dad
