Respect

Some people have so much respect for their superiors they have none left for themselves.
Peter Mcarthur

Some of us have been taught especially fervently that we are to do as we are told to do, and keep quiet about it. We have been taught that our superiors (originally our family but later our teachers, bosses, doctors, policemen and the government) know everything and we know nothing. Our parents, and later on all these other people, wanted or needed to have full control over us so they told us that their word was the law. And we beleived that we had no choice but to do whatever they said.

Some of us have learned not to respect ourselves. We lack self esteem and think that everyone else is somehow better and wiser than we are. We relate to other people instead of to ourselves, waiting for them to tell us what to do instead of relying on our own wisdom. How often do we go to another person asking for help, and then later realize that we could have come up with a better solution on our own? We have so much respect for our superiors that we have none left for ourselves.

It is time to realize that we deserve at least as much respect from ourselves as our "superiors" do. There is really no such thing as superiors, except in our own minds. We are all human and we all make mistakes. We all forget things. We all screw up. Even the government does things that are easy to see as a mistake in hindsight. And it requires a person with the strength of their own personal convictions to lead a movement to put things right, if they can still be put right. Have some respect for yourself. You're just as good as they are, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.