You can earn a lot of respect by accepting people on their terms. People get defensive when you start attacking the words they use and disputing the life they’r

You can earn a lot of respect by accepting people on their terms. People get defensive when you start attacking the words they use and disputing the life they’re telling you that they lived. It cuts both ways at that point and people quickly retreat to their corners. You don’t have to treat them as anything other than fellow human beings and ends unto themselves. Every person out there has always used language a little differently from you, has grown up in a different place and circumstance, and generally arrived at the shared present a different way than you. The trick is to agree to treat people like people and that you’re there to be an additive good and not a detractor.