I have come to understand any conclusion regarding the debate about the value of happiness verses self-respect will vary depending at which stage of life one is currently in.
When I was young, my self-respect was derived from the behavior of my parents as they modeled this quality in all aspects of their lives. This gave me the courage and resilience to keep myself from participating in actions that might have forced me to lose my self-respect and the respect of my family and others. I was expected to live by these standards, which at the time seemed just and necessary if I was to be trusted.
Then I moved 200 miles away to college. And I was 18 years old. For many young girls this is a scenario ripe for chaos and I did not disappoint. Temptation, plus the added amenity of freedom, all but overwhelmed me. But boy, I was happy; infinitely happy. My parents did not find out about my “happiness” until I decided to drop out of college; this after they had paid tuition and room and board for 3.5 years. A couple years later, after being married to a man that I came to despise with all my heart because of his physical and emotional abuse, I finally came to my senses and began to repent. Yes, repent, although I had no god at the time. I repented in hopes of discovering another dimensions of self-respect now that the other form had been forfeited. I needed to find contentment in whom I was as a person, and establish a goal to work towards. One way I figured this could be accomplished was knowing that I was trying to be the best person I could be, not because my parents or anyone else was demanding it of me, but because it is what my soul desired. I knew it was possible, but I wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. After all, self-respect is not something you can pull out of a drawer or buy off the shelf; it is an inner state of being.
Becoming a parent is the one exception to my belief that self-respect is better than happiness. Just knowing I could create life brought a sense of power in an acute way. Giving birth and watching my children mature has made me very happy indeed. It has been the happiest period in my life, thus far.
Now I am set to finish something I began in all earnest back in 1974: to get a degree in teaching. I am nine weeks away from this mark. (Everyone say, “Upsilamba!”) My completion of college is not only necessary to meet the demands of our economy, but to show appreciation for what support my parents gave me as I entered adulthood.
I could continue this narrative about how self-respect has empowered me to face the conflicts that come with motherhood, moving into a new neighborhood with discrimination running rampant, or returning to college after a long, long drought of classroom and technological inexperience. However, what I choose to emphasize at this point is the importance of standing on the side of truth and admitting to oneself and others when wrong. Perhaps this is the most under-preformed and underrated behavior today. Failure to do so impacts our most intimate interactions as well as the decisions that affect society as a whole.
Self-respect is something that will out-perform and outlast happiness if we allow it to be the anchor of our words and actions. Happiness, which is temporal at best, will naturally follow if self-respect leads.
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