Self-Respect And Respecting Others!

We more or less understand the meaning of self-respect which is to keep or show respect to one’s own self. A self-respecting person is one who tends to justify his/her deeds or actions or reactions in the intrinsic belief that s/he cannot possibly do or say wrong things, and if s/he gets insulted by others in the process or is asked to do or comply with ridiculous tasks s/he gets mortally offended. Losing one’s self-respect is often the end of the world for a truly self-respecting individual. This, of course, differs from individual to individual depending on the individual’s perception about it and whether his/her sense of self-respect is genuine or cultivated or vain. To this point we will come at a later context. First, we must try our best to explain the syndrome of self-respect or self-esteem further.

 

How does self-respect come about? We have to be clear about one thing that we cannot possibly create self-respect on our own; supposing we can the questions are at which stage of our personality development have we created this: at birth itself or in school/college days or during working life or during married life? Obviously, we cannot provide the answers. Therefore, we must consider this with a detached analysis.

 

Respecting one’s own self is subject to the basic fact that one knows oneself well. To put it in a personal perspective, I know myself well which is dependent on the attributes of my personality: what is my nature, how I speak or communicate to others, am I honest and frank, my beliefs and convictions, do I look presentable or not and so on. Now, for these attributes to develop in us we need a background or a base, and that base is obviously our society and our upbringing. Our personality develops from these: the environment we are born and brought up in, our traditions and beliefs given by our parents, the education we’ve got in schools and colleges, our level of intelligence and presence of mind, quality of the company we’ve been keeping all the time, nature and stature of our jobs or businesses, and most importantly, how the society and the others behave with us, look at us and treat us in all respects. From all these attributes in me I come to know my personality, and convinced in my ability, I start respecting myself or that I become a self-respecting person.

 

Another factor of paramount importance about the syndrome of self-respect is how we treat the others. It is said that we get respect only when we give respect. So, our inability or unwillingness to respect others is a factor of which we are often not aware at all. It reflects our mental state of being, that is to say, how egoistic or condescending or simply proud we are in our outward dealings and how this impacts our self-respect along with relationships. In reality, there is an inverse relationship between our presumptuousness or imperiousness and our self-respect: the more the former the less gets the latter. We may be truly unaware of this process or we may pretend our ignorance about this. Whatever it is, this process impacts the sense of self-esteem in us, and if we still go on with our peevishness then we start getting similar reactions from others and our self-respect becomes vain and showy.

 

This brings us to the point about having a false sense of self-respect. This is only natural, because we cannot deny anyone of the privilege of having self-esteem, and everyone has a right to it, even a vagabond or a thief or a dreaded criminal or all plain corrupt people. If they still prefer to continue living their lives with vain self-esteem, it’s their call, entirely.

 

For us all normal human beings the key to our self-respect in its truest sense, is to go on respecting all others in every stage of acquaintance in our life in every decent sphere of activity, not only for their jobs/tasks/deeds, but also for their good gestures and behavior. And, as we have mentioned earlier, you must not allow ego or pride come in the way of respecting others. Else, one fine morning you may find one of your closest ones complaining bitterly and disconsolately that you had never really cared for or respected him/her in all your life, which would drive you mercilessly in a spree of introspection as to exactly where you had gone wrong: till you find a clue to it you, as a genuinely self-respecting person, will not be able to live on with self-esteem.

 

The crux is then, mutual respect for a healthy living in the society of fellow human beings with your head held high, never having to stare at the ignominy of losing or probably losing your self-esteem. As a bonus, this would further strengthen your relationships with family, kin, friends, colleagues and all acquaintances at all levels of decent activities of life.

An Ode To Friendship!

What is friendship? Well, friendship is too vast a concept or a relationship for a clear-cut definition. In fact, it always remains better-off undefined, and even unfathomable. For practical purposes though, friendships are based on mutual likes, mutual respect, mutual love and a whole limitless world of mutuality. Some friends are made instantly, on the first exchange of mutual likes or in line with that saying ‘love at first sight’ being replaced with ‘friendship at first sight’, while some others take time to bloom into a perfect relationship. It is not necessary to have everything in common to be friends: friends can have diametrically opposite interests or even ideologies or passions or professions and yet be the best of friends. Mind you, like marriages friends are not made in heaven, they are technically ‘made in planet earth’ only.

Although friendships mostly develop and bloom amid school/college/university classmates, children in a neighborhood, friends’ friends, peers and office colleagues it can happen anytime with anyone at any stage of life. It is also totally free of the age factor, a 15-year-old can be the best of pals with a 60 or more-year-old. It is also free of all language, ethnicity, region, religion or culture barriers. Contrary to patriarchal beliefs it is also free of the gender factor, a boy can have an equally limitless friendship with a girl and vice versa. Therefore, if a true friendship is the basis between boys and girls then the terms of ‘girlfriends’ or ‘boyfriends’ are misnomers.

Again, contrary to the general belief that members of the family cannot be friends, friendship can bloom even between grandchildren and grandparents; children and parents; between siblings and in-laws; and with anyone, everyone. Friendship can in fact add a refreshing dimension to such relationships. Therefore, people need not hesitate to send friend requests to their family and kin too on the social media. With the world becoming a closed and small place digitally there can also be friends irrespective of the huge geographical distances, the instant communication facility being the bonding factor. It’s basically the bond that drives the friendship vehicle seamlessly around, both in reality and in virtual reality. However, a mere ‘friend’ on the social media does not necessarily signify friendship.

Friendship provides the truest form of a liberal democracy: you can talk, debate or dispute anything under the sun with friends; a friend will never undermine you for your weaknesses or limitations; friends do have the right to quarrel bitterly between themselves too and yet remain friends; selfish motives never penetrate a friendship bond and if it does then it’s not friendship; and absolutely nothing of the kind of competitiveness or rivalry ever figures in a friendship. People often confuse between business relationships and friendships for such reasons; however, it is possible to chisel out friendship here too, if the ‘business’ part is dealt and dispensed with diligently.

The beauty of friendship is that it is not at all necessary to do any maintenance work for keeping it up which means you need not visit your friends or call your friends or write/message to your friends at regular intervals to show that you are still friends. You can be in the same city or thousands of miles apart and you can be out of touch for months, years or even decades, and yet you can reunite anytime anywhere basking in the undiminished glory of your friendship as if nothing had happened. Therefore, the observance of ‘Friendship Day’ once or more in a year is not at all necessary to rekindle your friendships or to justify it by sending inspiring messages or by shedding abundant tears of remembrance. But of course, such occasions make you ponder, introspect and even write something about it, call it an ode or notes as you may prefer.

Friendship is selfless, limitless; friendship is forever. Perhaps the best ever gift of God bestowed on humankind. Celebrate friendship every moment of your life, and be proud you have them by your side, always. 

Who Goes There—Friend Or Foe?

No doubt, we’ve entered into a highly digital, automated and a rather virtual world where the inhabitants are increasingly interacting with each other without actually knowing each other in the physical sense. Transparency, the avowed goal of digitization, will indeed be achieved in a whole lot of interactions though the electronic slips generated thereof.  However, the desired transparency in terms of human relations is getting more and more shrouded in ambiguity, suspicion and blatant paranoia.

Basic definitions of a ‘friend’ are available on various dictionaries online. One says, ‘a friend is a person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations’. Another says, ‘a friend is a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard’. The common factors among various definitions are ‘affection’, ‘attachment’, ‘lack of hostility’, ‘esteem or regard’, ‘patron or promoter’ and ‘belonging to a group or nation’. Even virtual friends are also mentioned as ‘a person associated with another as a contact on social media or website’.

Likewise, basic definitions of an ‘enemy’ are also available. ‘A person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something’; ‘one that is antagonistic to another, especially, one seeking to injure, overthrow or confound an opponent’; ‘something harmful or deadly’ or ‘a military adversary’ or ‘a hostile unit or force’. So basically friend implies lack of hostility while enemy implies its overpowering presence.

The apparent clarity in the definitions is only an illusion in the modern world we live in where relationships have ceased to be unconditional or without ulterior motives. ‘Mutual affection or regard or esteem’ could now actually mean ‘mutual interest or business or greed’. With invisible or virtual friends you know only of the ‘interest’ to evolve out a friendship. However, even with visible or physical friends you know only that much revealed by them to you, the hidden or dormant feelings or stirrings or sentiments are totally lost on you. You are no longer sure if friendship really implies a lack of hostility.

Enemies are not so hard to determine as per the actions, reactions, diatribes, invective and even fisticuffs visible on both sides. However, the problem becomes really complicated when it comes to differentiate a friend from an enemy. The ‘interest’ syndrome here too goes undecipherable thanks to the various ‘conflicts’ involved in various ‘interests’. Mutual interest could soon degenerate into mutual distrust as one’s apparent interest is hereby manipulated to result into a drastic loss to the other. Hidden agenda, lobbying, selfish motives, manipulations, plain corruption and so on are factors now common to both friendship and enmity making your task all the more uphill to stick or not to stick to a ‘friend’.

Let us take few examples to explore the dilemma a bit further.

·      You start a venture with one you consider your best friend. Once the venture is successful and it pays up dividends your ‘friend’ is discovered trying to throw you out.

·      The craze for credit-grabbing for a task completed often makes enemies of friends, be it on the home front or in offices.

·      You are in a serious personal crisis. Friends abound around you giving you advice round the clock. And you understand only later that one or more of them wanted your crisis to continue or they conspired against you solving the problem.

·      Your boss seems to be a benevolent one to you by all indicators, however, the moment you walk out of his/her room something gets written on file against you, and you come to know of it when it’s already too late.

·      A friend of yours remains your ‘friend’ as long as s/he continues with his/her rants against your designated ‘enemy’; the moment the rants become praises your friend suddenly becomes your enemy.

·      Sometimes you don’t get the expected responses from friends for a good job done and you get frustrated. Let it be the virtual or the real world, here you can never be sure of anything. Maybe, your friends are acting out of plain envy and they are trying not to give you the deserving publicity or maybe their apathy is due to some other conflicting interests.

·      Although blood or family relations are excluded from the ‘friend’ list by some definitions the ambiguity of ‘friend or foe’ applies equally powerfully within modern families too.

As a way out of this dilemma you must always trust your gut feelings, and always analyze actions, reactions, comments or the lack of it or any other indicator concerning your friends and enemies together. Sometimes a veritable enemy could turn out to be your biggest benefactor. All is well as long as you are positive and hopeful. As experts advise you, give a second chance always, friend of foe.