“Put your oxygen mask first before helping others” is what we hear on the plane when we ignore the safety video for the millionth time. It’s tempting to help the person next to you. But when you think about it, you cannot help others if you cannot serve yourself.
Self-respect is an alignment between values and behavior. It is a stable internal quality — a state rather than a trait. To practice it, one must understand that it is a confrontation of self while building it all together in one piece. As we cringe in our seats at the screening of our past selves, each version unfolding like Russian nesting dolls, we must remember that every part attests to the character we possess today.
Character is the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life — the foundation of self-respect. As Jordan Baker in “The Great Gatsby” shamelessly puts it, “it takes two to make an accident.” Whether we realize it or not, our character disciplines and prepares us for the strains of adversity. That means we must be uncomfortably honest with ourselves and accept its price.
“A daily practice could be noticing a tendency you might have to berate or chastise yourself and offer yourself some grace and kindness as you would a dear friend,” said Dr. Allyson Pimentel, the director of Mindful USC. “Learn to listen to your body’s whispers so you don’t have to hear it scream.”
We routinely subjugate ourselves to self-deprecation: “the fixer,” “people-pleasing,” even tropes like “the Strong Black Woman” sometimes ring true. As a woman, I’ve been socialized to put others first — like crossing your legs to make room for a manspread. However, putting others first is a kind of self-abandonment that erodes our vitality.
One “controversial” decision can solve it.
“Boundaries are often considered walls, like there’s something aggressive about them. But they can also be thought of as bridges,” Pimentel said. “It’s a way that we can love each other and ourselves at the same time.”
Of course, implementing boundaries affects others. We are in constant orbit with each other, straining to maintain social equilibrium — even if that involves regrettably compromising our integrity. If your values are challenged or disrespected and you find yourself emotionally reactive, it’s a sign of unresolved conflict impeding your character — and you must forgive yourself.
“Forgiveness oftentimes is dependent on what others think—and that’s unfortunate,” said Reverend Mel Soriano, priest associate at St. John’s Cathedral. “Your inability to forgive yourself is because you are judging yourself by society standards—not yours.”
Comparison is the infamous thief of joy. Everybody’s perfect — and everyone can use a little improvement. When you compare yourself with others, you’re abandoning your own path in pursuit of somebody else’s.
“Self-esteem has a sort of judgement value to it, where you’re comparing yourself to some measure — whether it’s society or your own measure,” said Soriano. “You can’t change someone’s self-esteem, but other people can, and you’re only doing it to yourself.”
After speaking to a reverend and a psychologist, I decided to consult with my next of professional kin: my best friend, Tosin Adepoju, a senior analyst in legal management consulting at Deloitte in London. Her experience at the bank is not quite “Industry”-like (phew), but she understands the struggle of pleasing people at her expense.
“If you keep your word with yourself, you will value how difficult a task those things are to maintain and will notice others’ inability to be consistent with you is disrespectful,” Adepoju said. “If someone is willing to cut you off over standing on your boundaries, then their ask of you was not pure.”
And she’s right. Self-sacrifice is not as selfless as we believe. If ignored, we will harm ourselves. Recognizing that there’s only so much we can give without crossing into self-altruism is humility. Having self-respect brings no categorical imperative or principle of utility; there is no physical reward. Yet the sweet satisfaction of self-enrichment — like the pleasure of sinking into bed after a tiring day — is part of building one’s character, and ultimately, self-respect.
We try to steady ourselves at the tipping point of perfection, like the red needle of a weighing scale flicking between what we would like to see and what lies stored within us — skeletons in our closets, evils escaping Pandora’s box, mind-numbing shudders of bitterness, guilt, and shame. Yet there is satisfaction in achieving valiant humility. You may never be absolutely satisfied with the person you are, but trusting the process each step of the way is how you hone your morality. That is the currency of self-respect.
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