“If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else?” –RuPaul Charles
It’s all about respect, isn’t it? How many times have we heard that in our lives? “Respect your elders” or “respect your mother and father”. These, of course, are true. But what about respect for yourself? And is it more important than happiness in life? Or rather, is happiness the most important thing, self-respect be damned? You’d think I would wrestle with this question, but in all actuality, it took me point-five seconds to come up with a clear answer. Happiness, for me, isn’t nearly as important as having self-respect. Let me explain, ladies and gentleladies.
It’s easy to live with happiness in your life. If we’re lucky, we grow up with good parents and a good home with good friends. These things make us happy. We then find things like good music and good books and good hobbies. More happiness. But, what happens if you don’t have any place in your “happy” life for self-respect? Now, I had the good parents, good home, and good friends, which were then followed by good music, good books and good hobbies. But, these things weren’t what made me happy. Well, okay. They made me happy because good things generally make people happy (who doesn’t like good music?), but they weren’t at the core of my happiness. What made me most happy was that I knew who I was. However, if you’re familiar with my blogs by now, you’ll know that this isn’t all of what my life was about. No, I was not always happy with who I was; no self-respect and all that.
Now, it wasn’t any kind of overly dramatic (I know; strange, right?) moment where I realized that I sucked in general and my entire life was fail. It was just one of those moments where I realized that I was living my life for others and not for myself. Simply because I didn’t think enough of myself to worry about that specific “wrong” in my life. I cared more for the people around me; thought more of the people around me. However, it occurred to me then (in high school, if you were wondering) that I wasn’t less. No, I happened to be worth something. It was then, in a very dramatic unveiling, that I realized how much I didn’t suck and how I didn’t fail in general. It was, as you can imagine, a pretty nice feeling.
So, I took stock of my life (in as big a way as I could, being fifteen) and realized that I enjoyed all of the “good” things, but they didn’t bring me true happiness. Having a constant respect for who I was made me truly happy. I didn’t need the “good” things because they weren’t who I was, if that makes any sense. It’s way more important for me to respect who I am rather than have happiness. Because, in its truest form, if you have self-respect, you’ll find happiness.
I felt the same way as you did. After thinking about it for a while I came to the conclusion that self-respect is the core of happiness. You can have happiness without self-respect but you cannot have self-respect without happiness. It is the one thing that you can control and provide yourself with your own supply of happiness. Every time you stand up for yourself, for a belief you hold dear, or just hold strong to goal. The funny thing is, is, am I really choosing self respect or happiness? If I am choosing to maintain self respect, even though it cost sometimes, only because I enjoy the pure happiness that I get from it.
ReplyDeleteIt’s kind of the same thing as choosing all the things that you had on your list. Why do we like these things? We enjoy the happiness that they bring us. I think that we all choose to endure the difficulty that oftentimes goes along with self respect because the payoff is worth the discomfort that is experienced.
I love to hear that there are girls today that have relatively normal lives and don’t get sucked into a world of bad stuff. I am so glad that you have had the type of life you have and did not require a devastating issue to help you see that you are amazing just the way you are!
If you try to please everyone, all your energy is expended before you can fcous on yourself. Is that conceited? I'm sorry. Well not really, why should I be? Not everyone has that grand revelation, that eureka moment. I used to be like you Melissa, trying to be on damage control, making everything copesetic for all parties involved. But then I realized who gives a damn about me? Or my feelings? We all have that friend, that without asking, is asking for your assistance on one thing or another. But who takes the initiative for us? Why is it my responsibility to help the world when I can barely help myself at times?
ReplyDeleteI used to be a big time giver, I gave advice, I gave help, I gave money, I gave hell just about anything. But now I realize the world doesn't give back, only other givers do. Funny how everyone around me seemed to be a taker... I just stopped caring and giving out as much as I used to, this doesn't mean I don't give a damn. I just don't let others opinions influence my life, nor my decisions. I have to life my life, I only get one shot and I don't want to say I didn't do things the way I wanted. And then this way I can both respect myself and find that fleeting moment of happiness.