Self-respect

To all you "I need to feel good about myself" readers, beware... Turn back and close this window. Cuz this post is definitely not meant for you. Surely the title may seem relatively apt to feel good about yourself. But then again, you've been warned. Let's start off by getting straight to the point...

No thinking person, in his or her right mind, can ever have self-respect. I'm glad that caught your attention. (clap clap)
Who in the right mind can find pleasure in his or her self-degradation? No one. Wait there for a second before you find something really clever (or should i say something self-consoling) to counter my point. So here it is, I may be saying this out of repentance myself, but then after giving some thought to it, this is what I could infer.

"I'm sorry, I'll never do this again." I say this knowing very well that I am all too good at saying these lines and even more capable at doing the wrongs again. Rest assured, this is not a Sunday church confession box where I cry to the priest asking for forgiveness. This is something that we all do..... and something that we all live with after knowing what we've done. My jokes are really in bad taste and even uneven, distrustful... but that all creeps out from the bitter truth of having no self-respect for myself. The feeling of utter remorse, shedding of some bitterful tears, saying "I won't do it again"—was I deceiving myself?

Surely not. Cuz at that point, I learned by lesson and try to be better than before. Ka-ching! Self-respect down the drain! I mean sure, people always learn from their mistakes, but at what cost is it? Through the slow death of your self-respect? But then, abra cadabra, you've risen from the ashes again to have a new found self respect. But that's what the others think of you. For you, your self-respect died that very day you did the wrong. The feeling of torture and torment would eat you alive. There there, do NOT mistake this feeling with that little word we all know as "guilt". Your self-respect just died. Guilt, surely, is somewhere around the corner.

But then you would ask, isn't that the normal reaction if you did something wrong? Well, I know it's rather impolite to answer a question with a question, but what is "normal" exactly? Well, I'd say that after doing something gravely wrong unto others, feeling remorseful and tormented is just something "normal" i fancied to do cuz there was nothing else that I could feel at that time. Now that, was the absolute truth.

Let me compare this "self respect" issue with a relatively apt example. A mouse is just as conscious as any other human being. "More conscious" would be the right term here considering that a mouse has instincts and well, a man doesn't. The greatest task for a man to conquer would be impossibility. Doesn't make sense, does it? Or do you think that I'm shifting over from our topic of the day "self-respect"? Hang in there with me for a second. I'm making it easier for you.

We all know how mice despise cats. Imagine this little scenario... a cat gives chase to our little hero "the mouse". But the mouse, acting on instinct, scampers to its little hole in a flash, while the cat circles around the entrance of the mouse hole. The cat very well knows that she's been defeated. Only for now. Sooner or later, the mouse is a goner. But then moving on to the mouse, the mouse is scared out of its wits... even with his heightened awareness and well, innate stupidity, calls a spade a spade. He knows and rightfully denies that there is any justice about this little situation of his. The mouse may think of revenge. Days pass by, and by this time, in addition from the feeling of injustice done towards him, the mouse has many questions and doubts. Slowly, other problems creep into the picture other than the original problem (the cat). In his little cellar, the mouse simply sits—beaten, offended, embarassed, remembering each and every detail of this unjust ordeal and at times adding more details to his escape which come through his own inventions which could have actually happened...

Death of Self-respect... ring a bell now?