Most of the world’s religions and spiritual beliefs, including atheism, have treating others with respect and kindness near to their core beliefs. Most organisations – for profit or not – have treating others with respect and kindness woven into their core values. Many will talk about ‘putting the customer first’ or in the humanitarian space ‘putting beneficiaries at the centre’. And most of us want to be treated with respect and kindness.

And yet, we seem to forget to ask what this looks like in the nitty gritty of our day to day activities. This results in us having data breaches, people selling and sharing other people’s data, and so on. None of us wakes up asking ‘how can treat others badly today’ and we do.

We forget to treat others how we would like to be treated.

How would you like to be treated? Your data treated?

Perhaps it seems too simplistic. And we all know that how I would like to treated is different than how you would. And yet, just because it is simplistic, it does mean it enables us to get talking again. It doesn’t mean we need to agree, but do need to talk. Maybe it is a simple question, but it helps connect us to our values, to things we hold dear.

And we seem to need opportunities to do this more than ever.

The choice is up to us.

Photo by Ekaterina Shakharova