Today's Holidays: National Respect Day, National Cheeseburger Day, Hug a Greeting Card Writer Day, Yom Kippur, Water Monitoring Day
Website of the Day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FOUqQt3Kg0
Fun Fact of the Day: Birthday greeting cards are the best selling cards of all time!
Before we dive into celebrating a national holiday, today also marks the long overdue revival of my blog! Welcome back, and get ready to start celebrating again.
In fourth grade, I have a distinct memory of learning the RESPECT song in chorus, you know, the one that goes: R-E-S-P-E-C-T ! Find out what it means to me! There are only three songs I remember from that class, one being Mamma Mia (mostly for selfish reasons) and the other being the United States of America song (I can still sing every state in alphabetical order, though if you asked me where on a map those states are, the answer gets a bit more blurry). But the RESPECT song stuck with me as well, perhaps because of its catchy rhythm and rhyme, but now I think that some underlying truth beneath the voice of my ten-year-old self knew of the value of the song. And now, years later as I write this blog post about National Respect Day, I look back on those one hour classes in chorus, admiring the sight of thirty fourth graders sing obnoxiously loud and off key about respect. Not only was youth in that moment so beautiful, but without knowing it, for those sixty minutes of laughter amidst music and sound, our innocent minds of childhood were revealed to an overarching aspect of life that would guide our actions, conduct, and decisions for eternity.
Or maybe it was just a fun song to sing and a break from sitting at our desks in the classroom. But either way, respect now plays an undeniable, integral role in the world. I always find it interesting how at different stages of our lives, who and what we respect expands and changes. Almost a month into college, my “bubble” of respect has widened as I meet new people, interact with a new community, and discover new pieces of myself and my identity. We’ve had meeting after meeting about “respecting others, respecting our community, and respecting ourselves”, but it isn’t until we actually define the word “respect” in the context of our own lives and the relation between us and the world that we can truly appreciate this idea.
During orientation week at school, we all went on a four day trip somewhere with a small group of other first year students and two student leaders. My group was called “Intergenerational Connections”, and every day we went to an elderly home to talk to senior citizens, play games with them, and do activities. In the evenings, we’d return to the church that we stayed at, cook dinner together, and spend time reflecting on our deepest thoughts, fears, and insecurities through group discussions.
It was over the course of two nights when we sat in a circle in that carpeted area of the church, the one with two couches (one which I claimed to sleep on so I wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor), that I felt as if I was looking at a physical representation of respect. We shared parts of ourselves to each other and often teared up in the closeness of the circle and the emotional effect of our words. And as we went around the circle, one by one revealing some aspect of our family, personal development, character or background in response to the 3 H’s (Hero, Hardship, and Hope), I saw the trust we built in each other, the sense of belonging we began to feel, and the hope that we had in ourselves after we shared. What I witnessed was the most beautiful demonstration of respect that I had ever seen, literally unfolding right in front of me, and it was in that moment that I understood what it meant to have respect for myself and others.
We all deserve to not only be respected, but to know for ourselves what respect means, because respect is not a one-dimensional term. It varies in form based on our own experiences, surroundings, and beliefs, and if we can create our “bubble” of respect, our lives will be filled with all the more love, happiness, and meaning. Ultimately, it all comes back to my fourth grade chorus memory, as the song says it best: R-E-S-P-E-C-T ! Find out what it means to me!
How did you celebrate National Respect Day? Comment below or send in a picture to nationalholidaymovement@gmail.com ! #BeHappy #NationalHolidayMovement