Culture of Honour
Honour in culture is paramount. It hangs from us like a label and says either “valued” or “unnecessary”. Sometimes dishonour looks extreme in culture, to the point where if someone experiences dishonour, failure, or shame they will be excommunicated, killed or pressured to commit suicide. What is interesting about failure in our culture’s sense of the word, is that it makes room for growth. Sometimes parts of us must give way for new parts of us to emerge. In many cultures across Canada, failure is viewed as learning, not something that should bring the weight of shame or isolation or worse, death. However, how many times have we died to ourselves to become kinder, stronger, wiser? It may sound dark, but I know I have had to give up parts of myself to experience growth. What does this have to do with honour? Is there honour in our competitive, individualistic culture?
Before I answer this question, I just want to say that honour and respect are not synonymous. I would have a really hard time respecting someone who screwed me over in business or stabbed me in the back or lied to me all the time instead of being honest and vulnerable. Respect is earned, but honour is a precious gift we share with one another.
Why do we share honour? Simply, because we are all human, made beautifully, made well.
We all have unique stories of hardship, growing, rising, breaking and achievement, but at the end of the day and since the beginning of time, we have all shared the fundamental quality of humanness with one another.
What is honour? Honour is cherishing someone’s person, their gifts, their qualities, their heritage and their legacy. It’s treating people like they are important, despite failure, and it is not dependent on personal achievement.
Sometimes how we honour others is limited because we haven’t learnt to cherish our own person, our own stories. It is hard to value someone else based on their humanness alone when your own failures and shame keep you from seeing your own value.
We want to cultivate honour here at The Well, and we would love for you to join us on this endeavour. Before when I asked “is there honour in our individualistic and competitive culture?” I was torn when writing it. I was torn since sometimes it’s hard to see, or impossible to acknowledge honour in such a cut-throat environment, but truly even here there is honour because honour shows up when you show up.
Demanding respect can backfire because usually people will say “you have to earn that!”, but when you demand honour, you are only demanding to be seen as a human with as much value as the person next to you. Let’s start demanding honour and value from the people around us but let us also saturate our community, workplaces, families, partners, and friends with honour too. As it does when you give most gifts, it feels good and it feels right. Try it, I dare you.
