Self Respect and Self Esteem - Get your children on to them

Some of the greatest human conflicts and tragedies can be traced to treating someone unfairly or with a lack of respect or courtesy. This is true at personal as well as national, cultural and racial levels. On the positive side of indicators, the greater the percentage of self-respecting individuals with self-esteem in a population, the more successful the society is in a genuine way. Simply having a lot of stuff, money or material wealth does NOT make a successful society.

 However, if you want to change the world, or if you want to change the situation in the world for the better, one has to start with oneself.

Sometimes we hear this said "Until you respect yourself, don't expect others to respect you." 
This is true to a some extent, since not everyone in this world treats others with respect, as a default starting point.

It is wise  and the right thing to do - to treat others with respect. It is another issue that some people earn a 'loss of respect' by their consistent actions.

Learn to respect yourself - expect and demand the respect you give to others, for yourself as well. 

Note: Demanding respect does not always have to be a loud verbal demand, but can be more subtle and quiet. 

One can decide to settle for no less than being treated with respect, whenever possible. It does not mean one can change others who are determined to disrespect you, but it can change your reaction and the way you deal. That is one way you express self-respect.

Another reason the world is so skewed in the distribution of individual achievements is strongly related to self-esteem. This is a quality that is very subtle, but important. It feeds on the success it achieves. Self-esteem does not necessarily  have to be conditional upon individual achievements or success, but appears to flourish based on those. A lot of self-esteem seems to depend upon others around us, building us up from within.

One just needs to have a belief that one is entitled to aspire for the best in the world and achieve the best in the world. One needs to put in effort to achieve one's goals and that itself should be the basis for self-esteem even if we miss our goals for reasons beyond our control. 

There are fake, pumped-up, imitations of 'self-esteem' that are really self-delusions of grandeur or superiority, with nothing to back it up. This is dished out a lot in the modern world with easy use of superlatives. Words such as 'Fantastic!!' 'Amazing!' 'Out of this world!' 'Mind-blowing!' 'You are the BEST!' being thrown around loosely with no real or solid achievement, supposedly to boost self-esteem. It only leads to an inflated balloon called ego!

I believe these are two important aspects that our children need to be nurtured in and taught - Self-respect and Self-esteem. It can change the face of society. It is by attacking the self-respect and self-esteem in people that they are, can be and have historically been kept down.


Copyright  (c) Kannan Narayanamurthy 2015
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