How We Treat Others Is More Important than the Task at Hand

This photo was taken a few years after this experience when we were on a camping trip at Fish Lake with our Lowry cousins. I think David and James were about 4 years old when we had our fathers and sons campout referenced in this experience.

Sometimes how we go about things is just as important as what we do. Anything we do can either build or tear down others based on our approach. Similarly, how something is said is often just as important as the words we use.

I was at a church-sponsored campout several years ago with my sons, David Ericson and James Ericson, where fathers and sons were camping together. My sons were probably about four years old at the time. A dear friend, Daniel Burr, was helping me take down my tent after we had already cleaned up most of the campsite to head home. One other remaining father was trying to encourage his sons, who were around the same age as my sons, to help him take down his tent as well. This father criticized and berated his sons as they tried to help him with their tent.

Wade Haggard and Dan Burr during a scouting camp to Goblin Valley, Utah. My sons were still Cub Scouts but were allowed to attend to fulfill a camping requirement for their Arrow of Light award.

Dan looked at me as we worked together and said, "sometimes it's not what you say but how you say it that matters." That moment is emblazoned in my mind, and I've always been grateful for Dan reminding me of that important truth. He lives according to this sentiment and has always been positive and encouraging with his own children and with hundreds of other youth he has led over the years.

How we treat others in word and deed is a reflection of who we are inside. Are we mean spirited and disagreeable or are we kind and patient? Do we respond in anger and defensiveness when someone crosses or challenges us, or do we maintain a peaceable, quiet assurance in who we are and what we value most? Our behavior should demonstrate who we are trying to become—our best selves. Most are striving to improve and want to be loving and kind in our interactions with others.

We should never objectify others—cajoling, debasing, manipulating, dominating, or abusing them in any way—as a means to our ends. The objectification of others, regardless of our relationship to them, is the ultimate manifestation of selfishness and demonstrates that we lack (or perhaps have simply forgotten) the love and respect required to follow an essential teaching of Jesus Christ:

"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you: do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." (Matthew 7:12)

Treating others as we would like to be treated is a simple practice of grace and selflessness that can improve any relationship.