Nothing Is More Important Than Self Respect.
By Anubhav Srivastava (Register For His Workshop – Super Confidence For Super Success !)
Nothing is more important than self respect. Not money, not love, not your designation. If there is one thing that matters most in life in addition to happiness, it is self respect. And frankly if you do not have self respect, there is no way you can be happy in the first place, no matter how much money you make, what position you attain in life or whether you are with someone who claims to love you.
What is self respect? A lot of people confuse self respect with ego. They are two separate things. Ego is all about proving yourself superior to the other person, whether by trying to belittle them or by asserting your power over them directly or indirectly.
Self Respect is about looking in the mirror and being proud of who you are and not letting others treat you like a doormat that they can trample upon whenever they wish or treat you like a thing that they can use or throw away as per their wishes.
Some people have been brainwashed with the idea that they should always be a people pleaser under all circumstances. They bend over backwards so many times and try so hard to win the respect of everyone else, that ultimately people only see them as soft targets that can be manipulated and used as per their wishes. And nope, they are not respected. Respect is commanded, it can never be begged for.
One of the main reasons, I decided it is better to start your own business instead of going for a 9 to 5 job is because I wanted to be in control of my destiny and I find it very hard to take orders from someone else, especially when it starts bordering on disrespect and humiliation.
I read a joke somewhere about how Bollywood movies exaggerating about people getting heart attacks as a result of being humiliated was nonsense. Because if that were the case, then everyone in a corporate job would get a heart attack every week.
Reading that “joke” actually made me pretty sad about the kind of lives most of us are being forced to lead. It makes me sad to see how most of us are still slaves in a way. Sure, it is a million times better than “real slavery” but the fact that people can willingly trade their dignity for money is tragic.
Obviously, they will say they have no choice. Because they need to put food on the table. And not just food but also expensive clothes, gadgets, jewelry and accessories. And they need that expensive table to be in an expensive house. And then they need an expensive car outside, or maybe two. The more the better!
And why do they need that? Because they want to impress people who hate them to begin with!
There is absolutely nothing wrong with materialistic success. Almost everyone wants it and they should. We all need to make money to make a living. But the question is, at the cost of what? Will you genuinely be proud of what you achieved in life, if achieving it meant sacrificing all your dignity? For most people with a conscience, the answer would be no.
I decided to become self employed and run my own business because I knew I didn’t want a boss shouting down my throat. Sure, in business it’s not like you are the boss, you still have customers shouting at you. And of course you HAVE to address their concerns if you need to survive in business, don’t think you are automatically a king just because you run a business.
What is not acceptable however is trading self respect for money and the moment someone crosses the line, I would choose to cut them off and not work with them
And the same is true in relationships and marriages. Countless people (not just women, men as well) stay in emotionally and physically abusive relationships, or in relationships where they are manipulated, taken for granted and demeaned at every single step. And yet they chose to accept their circumstances because they are either afraid of being alone or because they are expected to tolerate the abuse by society OR because they are so in love with the manipulative person that they seemed to have lost their identity.
They think that by choosing to accept that abuse and losing their identity, the other person will actually appreciate their loyalty and love them more, or eventually realize their mistake and change. But unfortunately that never happens, and certainly never happens if you don’t take a stand and refuse to accept the abuse any further. On the contrary, the person starts taking them for granted and is encouraged to make thing worse, because they think that no matter what happens, you are always going to be there and silently take all the crap they give you.
As always, I am not saying that the first sign of an argument, you should pack up your bags and leave. Obviously, compromising to a degree is a good idea to save any relationship but you need to set boundaries. Once they are crossed by the other person, you need to tell yourself enough is enough and move on.
So at the end of this short article, the only thing I would like to tell you is to start respecting yourself if you don’t do already and please don’t confuse it with ego.
Self Respect is about knowing that nothing is more important than your dignity. Its about not letting others get away with treating you like crap. If you are being treated like you are a nobody then even the highest amount of money you get in the job won’t change the fact that in the eyes of your employer, you are a commodity, not a person.
If you are always being belittled, insulted or abused, whether emotionally or physically by someone who says they love you, then no matter what they claim, the truth is in their eyes you are nothing more than a toy over which they think they have complete power.
Do you really think you can be happy in such kind of a life, where your very existence becomes that of a thing, not an individual? Take a stand, let people know you have had enough and you will not let them use you anymore. Once you develop a backbone, not only will you start respecting yourself, others will start giving you the respect you deserve as well.
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By Anubhav Srivastava, Author of the book, Unlearn: A Practical Guide To Business & Life. The book that will show you why almost everything you were taught by the society about “success” was WRONG. Download a COMPLETELY FREE Digital Copy by going to https://anubhav323.gumroad.com/l/unlearnbook , don’t worry you don’t need to pay anything. Just enter $0 as the fair price, click on “I want this” and you are done! You can even send it to Kindle! Watch the Book motion poster below.
Hello, my name is Anubhav Srivastava, and I am a Business Consultant and Keynote Speaker for over a decade having provided services for almost hundred companies across a range of industries. If you are a business leader, you may be interested in improving the overall performance (and consequently PROFITS) of your organization.
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