Respecting others

I truly believe somebody's rights end when somebody else's rights start. However, defining a fair boundary is a complicated issue and the source of all conflicts (small and big) we have in society. From a small dispute between neighbors to a big war between countries, it is always a matter of defining the boundary of what one party can do without infringing on the other's rights.

I always believed that people should never do anything to others that they would not like others to do to themselves. This way, the boundary between two people's rights would be implicitly defined and no conflicts would ever happen. Now I know this is not enough.

This idea would only work if we had all the same principles and preferences. Different people are happy or sad with different things and, oftentimes, what makes one happy might make the other sad. Frequently we act based on our thought that we are doing the best to everyone, only to see that some people might not end up happy with the outcome of our initiative. When this happens, we tend to think that it is the others' fault, since they are not able to see what is the best for them according to our perspective of the facts. But who said that our perspective is the right one?

We must do things not based on what we think is the best for everyone but, instead, based on what will not be bad for the others, no matter what their perspective is. In simple words, this means we should respect the different viewpoints people can have and try the best we can not to infringe on their rights.