Self-
respect is entirely different from self-love, or even self-esteem. People have said that
innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself. By
loss of innocence, I mean the realization that I am not special, that I am not living a charmed life, there is nobody
watching over me. Real self-respect can follow, unpinned by the feeling of
entitlement.
Self-respect is not the key to
happiness. If anything, the
innocence, or
ignorance mentioned in the above paragraph is
happiness, and the loss of
innocence and the gain of
self-respect can be a jarring and process, making you wiser but not
happier. Self-respect is something you pursue because once you gain that loss of innocence, there is
no turning back. The attainment of
self-respect is a journey first begun by that
disillusionment. Everybody starts the
journey to know oneself, but fewer
finish.
Part of the
reason I node about myself is not because I think anybody cares about who I am, but to keep track of the
person I once was.
I believe that the
essence of true self-respect, as mentioned in Didion's
On Self-Respect, can also be called
character. The idea of doing things because they '
build character' is almost archaic now, a remnant of generations past, involving the sacrifice of
immediate gratification or pleasure for (sometimes
intangible)future benefits.
Self-respect is about
getting shit done, and not
depending on others for the scale on which you judge
yourself.
Ernest Hemingway wrote, in
A Farewell to Arms:
"The world breaks
everyone and afterwards many are strong at the
broken
places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very
good,
the very
brave, and the very
gentle impartially. If you are none of these
you can be sure it will kill you too, only there will be no
special
hurry."