Self-Respect And Respecting Others!
We more or less
understand the meaning of self-respect which is to keep or show respect to one’s
own self. A self-respecting person is one who tends to justify his/her deeds or
actions or reactions in the intrinsic belief that s/he cannot possibly do or say
wrong things, and if s/he gets insulted by others in the process or is asked to
do or comply with ridiculous tasks s/he gets mortally offended. Losing one’s
self-respect is often the end of the world for a truly self-respecting
individual. This, of course, differs from individual to individual depending on
the individual’s perception about it and whether his/her sense of self-respect
is genuine or cultivated or vain. To this point we will come at a later
context. First, we must try our best to explain the syndrome of self-respect or
self-esteem further.
How does
self-respect come about? We have to be clear about one thing that we cannot
possibly create self-respect on our own; supposing we can the questions are at
which stage of our personality development have we created this: at birth
itself or in school/college days or during working life or during married life?
Obviously, we cannot provide the answers. Therefore, we must consider this with
a detached analysis.
Respecting one’s
own self is subject to the basic fact that one knows oneself well. To put it in
a personal perspective, I know myself well which is dependent on the attributes
of my personality: what is my nature, how I speak or communicate to others, am I
honest and frank, my beliefs and convictions, do I look presentable or not and
so on. Now, for these attributes to develop in us we need a background or a
base, and that base is obviously our society and our upbringing. Our personality
develops from these: the environment we are born and brought up in, our traditions
and beliefs given by our parents, the education we’ve got in schools and
colleges, our level of intelligence and presence of mind, quality of the
company we’ve been keeping all the time, nature and stature of our jobs or
businesses, and most importantly, how the society and the others behave with
us, look at us and treat us in all respects. From all these attributes in me I come
to know my personality, and convinced in my ability, I start respecting myself
or that I become a self-respecting person.
Another factor of
paramount importance about the syndrome of self-respect is how we treat the
others. It is said that we get respect only when we give respect. So, our
inability or unwillingness to respect others is a factor of which we are often
not aware at all. It reflects our mental state of being, that is to say, how
egoistic or condescending or simply proud we are in our outward dealings and
how this impacts our self-respect along with relationships. In reality, there
is an inverse relationship between our presumptuousness or imperiousness and
our self-respect: the more the former the less gets the latter. We may be truly
unaware of this process or we may pretend our ignorance about this. Whatever it
is, this process impacts the sense of self-esteem in us, and if we still go on with
our peevishness then we start getting similar reactions from others and our
self-respect becomes vain and showy.
This brings us to
the point about having a false sense of self-respect. This is only natural, because
we cannot deny anyone of the privilege of having self-esteem, and everyone has
a right to it, even a vagabond or a thief or a dreaded criminal or all plain
corrupt people. If they still prefer to continue living their lives with vain
self-esteem, it’s their call, entirely.
For us all normal
human beings the key to our self-respect in its truest sense, is to go on
respecting all others in every stage of acquaintance in our life in every
decent sphere of activity, not only for their jobs/tasks/deeds, but also for their
good gestures and behavior. And, as we have mentioned earlier, you must not
allow ego or pride come in the way of respecting others. Else, one fine morning
you may find one of your closest ones complaining bitterly and disconsolately
that you had never really cared for or respected him/her in all your life,
which would drive you mercilessly in a spree of introspection as to exactly
where you had gone wrong: till you find a clue to it you, as a genuinely self-respecting
person, will not be able to live on with self-esteem.
The crux is then,
mutual respect for a healthy living in the society of fellow human beings with
your head held high, never having to stare at the ignominy of losing or probably
losing your self-esteem. As a bonus, this would further strengthen your
relationships with family, kin, friends, colleagues and all acquaintances at
all levels of decent activities of life.
Comments