3/26/05: Self-respect

When we allow another person to treat us with lack of dignity and respect, we are allowing ourselves to do the same. Letting someone else mistreat you is the same thing as mistreating yourself.

If you saw your child being treated in an undignified manner, would you not stand up for him or her?

We must stand up for ourselves, too, when others treat us this way. Often we allow our bosses, our spouses, our friends and relatives to treat us in a way that weakens us. We make exceptions for certain people, because they have authority over us or we need or want something from them.

Nothing is worth giving up your dignity and self-respect for. Not a job, not a relationship, and especially not a material object. When others are allowed to walk all over us, we too end up walking all over ourselves. In the end, the very thing we traded our integrity for vanishes from our lives and we are left with nothing.

Maintain your dignity and self-respect and it will never leave you.