Respect your body, respect others and respect the world. This will be the third and last of my “mini” series. With the holidays upon us, this has been an inspiring season and I hope this light will shine on in you.

So let’s look what respect is: “a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities or achievements.”

R-E-S-P-E-C-T as Aretha Franklin so famously sang — we all want it, don’t we? We feel we all deserve it. I agree to a point — in a perfect world, we all get along, are kind to one another and respect each other.

You can go to the beginning of time and see that our world was never this “perfect world.” It can be very cruel, heartless and overwhelming, but on the other hand it can be kind, beautiful and supportive.

As I mentioned in my column about thankfulness, you can always see a cup half empty, but try to see it as half full. Respect comes from within. If you cannot respect yourself, how can you respect others and the world? Respecting your body, mind and spirit by taking good care of it gives you a better chance to be able to respect others.

Unfortunately, we have become a society of entitlement, where you are not responsible for your own actions and where respect and respecting one another is diminishing by the day. With Thanksgiving just a couple of days away, let’s start (or continue) to be thankful and respect ourselves and others and with patience, this will become a better world.

Ester H. Marsh, associate executive director, JF Hurley Family YMCA