[LIFE VIEW] Respecting yourself.
Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that's real power.
Clint Eastwood
Hello and welcome to another episode of lifechronicles. Today I would like to talk about respect, but more specifically, respecting yourself. Obviously it is extremely wise to respect others, but what about when you don't respect yourself. After all, you get to live with yourself 24/7, so if you don't respect yourself, then how much of a man or woman will you be in the end. How strong will your character be? When temptations come along, how strong will your willpower be to resist? These are questions we should all be asking ourselves if we ever want to improve ourselves as a person or individual.
I believe there are many, many people out there who don't care what people think of them, and that's fine. Good even. However, is it because they have strong morals and stand upon said morals no matter what? Or is it because they don't value themselves, hence they don't value or care what others think of them? Mmm, makes you think doesn't it? Respecting yourself means that no matter what people ask you to do or say, you won't do anything that lowers your value as an individual. It means that you choose whom you hang out with, you choose your actions in everyday life, because you respect the individual that you are.
Let's say for example someone approaches you and wants to sleep with you. Let's say you have the opportunity to have a one-night stand with an individual. Respecting yourself, I believe, would cause you to say no. It will cause you to respectfully decline the "offer" because you know by doing it, it'll disrespect the other party, and, you will be disrespecting yourself. After that guilt steps in and then from there on out it's pretty much a slippery slope to depression. Sound harsh? Well, it can happen, trust me.
Back in the day I used to suffer a lot from guilt. To be quite honest Is till suffer from it today, however, not as much as back then. I think it has something to do with maturity I guess, where you just reach that point of knowing that you aren't perfect and accept that you are a flawed human being who is trying to better themselves. Respect to me is a huge thing. Especially respecting others. But come to think of it, I've never really thought about how it is if I respect myself.
I want to go through life holding my head up high in society, I would like people to speak highly of me, character wise. Although I don't care what others say or think about me, I would still like to be seen as someone who respects themself. Someone who stands up for what they believe in and someone who no matter how they are treated, respects others. However, I have to say, that there are times when I lose respect for others. It's not a choice of my own, but when a certain individual does something on purpose, that completely goes against what I believe in, then I tend to lose respect for that person.
And so the same can go for respecting oneself. If you do something that you know is wrong, and it's something that goes against your morals, then what do you think will happen? You'll feel that guilt, that unforgiveness, and before long you'll lose respect for yourself. You won't be able to look at yourself in the mirror, your appearance will start to slip, you won't care about how you look or how you talk. Why? Because you have lost respect for yourself. You don't value yourself as a human being so to speak.
Respecting yourself is loving yourself I believe. It's where you get to a point where you will not accept the following...
- Being pressured into doing something you don't want to
- Associating yourself with individuals who have questionable morals
- Hanging out with people who do not add value to your life
This might seem vain and yes maybe a bit harsh, but if you respect yourself you'll know what you want out of life, and you'll know when it's time to get rid of dead weight. People who have no positive influence in your life, people who only exist to bring down others, etc. Respect yourself enough to know that you are better than that, that you deserve better than that, and that it is up to you to go out there and find exactly that!
When you respect yourself you'll be bolder, you'll walk tall with more authority and when that happens, people will see it. They'll know you're an individual who has character, who has standards, and who will not put up with anything that doesn't affect you in a positive way. This doesn't mean you don't have empathy for others, this just means that you know your self worth, and you will not settle for anything less than that.
