How to behave to avoid the Self Respect of Others and Ours getting hurt?
A follower asked like this (Name hidden):“Pls tell me what is self respect….How to avoid hurting the self respect of others…should i sacrifice our self-respect to please others….”
REPLY:
Self respect means expecting or ensuring that our dignity, way of life and our individuality are respected by others.
It can also be considered as the display of our dignity.
(Should we fight with others or be silent, if they try to spoil our life? READ HERE!)
In other words, pride and confidence in oneself; a feeling that one is behaving with honor and dignity.
Examples:
“Work hard to keep up your self-respect”
“Do not talk unnecessarily. You may lose your self respect”
Keeping up our Self respect is not possible in all cases since everyone has different preferences in his life and everyone has distinct nature.
It is over-expectation to expect that others with different priorities should understand our priorities and way of life.
Everyone should not stop just with expecting self respect. He should honor the dignity of others.
Unwanted comments can be avoided when we deal with others. Commenting on the priorities of others will definitely hurt them as he too has every right to follow his own way of living.
Our Self respect is affected when others comment about us.
There are ways to comment about others. Let us understand with some examples:
Say, a girl is wearing salwar dress. But, your priority is saree. You can not tell her “wearing salwar is not Indian way of life. Only saree is meant for women”.
No. You can not say. She is wearing another decent dress, ie, salwar that closes the whole body. So, this hurts her dignity.
(I have selfishness, ego and find fault on others. How to correct this nature? READ HERE!)
Your neighbor is using a brand of car and you are using another brand. You can not tell him that your brand alone is perfect. He has every right to use his own choice of car.
Even in the spirituality, you can not pressurize another person to come to your spiritual path. Everyone has right to speak of the merits of his religion or spiritual path.
One can not tell that the religion followed by others is inferior. Here, we are commenting against his choice to make him accept your offer.
This will hurt his sentiments, dignity and self respect.
Therefore, we can understand, self respect is the right to follow our own way of life that does not violate the codes of society.
What if one’s priorities hurt the sentiments of the society?
For example, if a person is naked in a public place, we can not remain inactive just because it is his right. Even here, we have no right to accuse him.
Then? We have right to inform the police and request them to remove that naked person from public place.
(HOW SHOULD WOMEN PROTECT THEIR DIGNITY AND PRIVACY IN LIFE? READ HERE!)
Thus, there are ways to deal with any situation without hurting the individual liberty of others.
You have right to indicate in a decent manner. But, you have no right to pressurize anyone and accuse him.
Next, should you sacrifice your self respect to please others?
Not necessarily.
In case someone expects you to sacrifice your dignity to give a favor, you need not lose your self respect here. This is like selling your eyes to buy a picture.
Let us see another case. A company owner expects a girl aspirant for job to ‘cooperate’ or ‘adjust’ with him to get that job, she has to leave that place because he challenges her dignity.
If she accepts his offer, she loses all respects in his sight. He will always be trying to make her obey his private needs.
(I am not beautiful and hence I am not respected. What to do? READ HERE!)
In such situations that challenge our dignity, we should never compromise our self respect.
Same applies for bribing also. If an employee of a Govt. department demands bribe to perform his duty, we need not bribe him.
When we bribe him, we may finish that work soon. But, we are compromising our right to get the services of the government paying just recommended charges.
Therefore, in material activities, we should not compromise our dignity.
However, when we approach God, ie, Krishna, in a worship or prayer, we should not even think that we have self respect, because, we are very insignificant in front of God.
So, we should consider ourselves like a straw on the streets. We have no self respect in front of God. Everyone should have a servant-like mindset in front of the God.
The conclusion is that, we have no significance in front of God. But, we should not allow others to expect us to compromise our dignity to get an offer or services in our day to day life.
Hope you are clear.
(HOW TO AVOID ANGER, UPSET AND FRUSTRATION IN LIFE? READ HERE!)
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