#11 Self Respect

Yeesh. This one is a hot topic.

I just watched a video recently and this person was basically saying that we don’t know what anyone’s thinking at any time. What they’re thinking about us. So when we think we know what someone’s thinking about us, we’re really ideating what WE might be thinking about ourselves. And it can be doubly shitty because we’re not only seeing the worst in ourselves, we’re assuming the very worst in the other person.

Self respect is, it seems, inextricably linked to self doubt. For me, for certain, anyway.

You ever watch “The Odd Couple”? It was a movie with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. And then later on a television show with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman. Edgy for it’s time, both the film and TV show, (and the Broadway play preceding both) centered on Felix and Oscar, a news writer and sports writer respectively, who lived together for reasons. Hilarity ensued as fastidious Felix ran up time and again against obnoxious Oscar’s hijinx.

So, I think, it goes with self doubt and self respect. I’ll leave you to decide which character most embodies which attribute.

Self doubt is like smoke in the kitchen. Self respect is like warm bread smelling up the house.

Do you ever imagine what you’d do if someone spoke to your kid, to your friend, to your loved one they way we speak to ourselves sometimes? I know I’d come unglued.

If I ever heard some of the things I said about me…

Do I have a value for self respect? I do. I do. Self respect is about stepping into the middle of that fracas that goes on in our own minds sometimes and separating fact from fiction. Self doubt would like to decide the entire vacation plan. We cannot let it drive the station wagon! Our own mental health is riding backwards in the way back seat. Safety first. We cannot let self doubt pick our direction.

I know this to be true because of evidence in my own life. How many times have I just woken up in the backseat of a car with self doubt at the wheel? Many. The answer is many.

And self respect is a discipline. Something to plan ahead for. Something to practice in the mirror in the morning. And the afternoon. And before bed.

You guys remember Stuart Smalley? It’s a media-heavy post today. He was a character on SNL in the 1990s played by Al Franken. His tagline was “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggon it, people like me”.

I think we have to be that guy. We have to recognize that, in fact, we are good, enough. Smart enough. And people do like us. Not everyone, not all the time. But we’re capable of being loved and cared for by the people around us just as we are. And when we realize that, when we really lock horns with it, self-respect opens up to us.

But it has to be more than that, right? It has to be I’m good enough for me. I’m smart enough to face my own life. People like me not because they’re magnanimous, but because I’m worthy of being liked from the jump.

Ultimately I’m thinking of others though. I see us as interconnected with one another. We are not islands. We do not live alone—not well, anyway. Not in a way that honors the fullest expression of our singular humanity. A life lived in service to others is a life well lived indeed. But if we’re not able to respect ourselves, our very real contribution(s) to the world around us, it will be difficult or impossible to see others as worth serving.

If we’re not able to respect ourselves, our boundaries, our needs, our wants, our whole selves, where does that leave the people who would eat the fruit from our trees?