Respect or Regard

What differentiates, Respect from Regard?

Sanjay K Biswas
ILLUMINATION
2 min readAug 29, 2020

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Photo by Tiago Felipe Ferreira on Unsplash

Have you ever thought about the difference between respect and regard? Recently, I questioned some of my friends on this but did not get any satisfying explanation. For them, it’s the same.

Contrary to popular belief, regard and respect are different.

Regard is a gesture, that is more external in nature. It’s shown to people for their roles and positions.

Whereas, respect is internal. It’s the feeling and vibration radiated for who the person is.

“Respect is how to treat everyone, not just those you want to impress.” Richard Branson

When you think of respect, you need to ask yourself, “How well do I treat someone who is junior in age or designation, or has achieved lesser than me?”

Respect is an attitude and feeling towards a person. It is not related to position, status or age. It’s our vision for others. We can show respect to anyone, irrespective of, who he is? It depends on our parameter to respect people. Respect is for the being, for who we are.

Each individual is to be equally and uniformly respected. We should radiate nice thoughts, speak well and behave cordially with people. This is how respect is radiated to them.

Respect is the foundation of our relationships.

Regard is formal. According to roles and position, we need to extend courtesies and follow protocols externally. So regard is for people’s role and position.

Do not equate regard with respect.

We extend regard for people’s age, knowledge, achievements, wealth, roles or position.

Our respect should not change according to people’s role. Respect every individual for who they are, for their qualities, nature. You may have differences of opinion but you continue to respect them.

You can respect everyone by accepting their behavior and not questioning it. Connect to who they are, before connecting to the roles they play to build a foundation of authentic respect.

Your vibrations of thoughts, words and behavior should be the same for everyone, your respect should be uniform for everyone.

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Sanjay K Biswas
ILLUMINATION

Coach, writer and Online Marketer. Helping people to get into their right mindset and live an abundant lifestyle with purpose.