To have self-respect is to have everything.
Joan Didion hit on this in her essay “On Self-Respect”, which appeared in her renowned collection of narrative essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem when she wrote,
“To have that sense of one’s intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love, to remain indifferent.”
This article is not meant to preach or act as a type of “self-help” guide, but rather to shed light on an important subject that has faded and molded in odd ways in each subsequent generation.
What is self-respect anyways?
The phrase has a kind of annoying ring to it.
It sounds like something your mother reminds you of over and over again on the phone – when you leave for a party in a dress that’s a little too short, before another first date with a questionable guy, playing in your ear like a broken record that can’t be shut off.
The phrase has lost much of its original meaning.
It has become that irritating expression that your parents keep reminding you of and you keep brushing aside, yet self-respect is a much more personal process.
In fact it may be the single most personal transformation.
It’s not something anyone can remind you to bring with you, like a loose house key or a spare iphone charger.
It’s something that is birthed and formed within you over a long and usually quite painful period of time.
Self-respect springs from lots and lots of mistakes, tears, cracked hearts, and some more of those same mistakes.
It takes years and years of putting yourself last, of giving far more than you take, of giving your heart to all the wrong people for self-respect to be fully formed within you, but once self-respect has arrived, she doesn’t take a vacation.
Self-respect consists of an odd mixture of seeing yourself in perspective yet still knowing you deserve the very best.
It is a calm inner peace that leads you to make the right decisions and keep your head held high in any and every situation.
Didion writes,
“There is a common superstition that “self-respect” is a kind of charm against snakes, something that keeps those who have it locked in some unblighted Eden, out of strange beds, ambivalent conversations, and trouble in general. It does not at all. It has nothing to do with the face of things, but concerns instead a separate peace, a private reconciliation.”
We roll our eyes at the phrase “self-respect” because of the misconception noted above.
The girls our parents tell us about who so nicely exhibit “self-respect” are often the same ones who wear collared shirts and long khaki pants, refuse to go out on Saturday nights and sit on their high horses judging those of us who like to take off the edge with some alcohol and a night out on the town.
While these girls may indeed have self-respect, they are most definitely not the only ones striding around with it in their back jean pockets.
Self-respect isn’t about opting out of a wild party or a date with a guy who might not be right for you, but rather knowing what the situation entails and making the decisions that put you and your priorities first.
Hester Prynne (or more topical, Olive Penderghast, Emma Stone in Easy A) exhibits self-respect.
Perhaps contrary to popular belief, Samantha Jones from Sex and The City is a walking symbol of self-respect.
Didion writes, “… people with self-respect have the courage of their mistakes. They know the price of things … They are willing to invest something of themselves.”
I think in our generation this concept is often lost on us because we worry far too much about what others think.
We base our perception of “self-respect” on what others tell us – don’t go see your ex boyfriend, don’t accept that girl’s apology, don’t wear that, don’t say this, don’t post that on instagram … no self respecting woman would do so …
But doing what others say instead of following our own advice is the enemy of self-respect.
We are too concerned with this image of what “self-respect” looks like when the antidote is really just being you – having the courage of your mistakes and doing what you please when you please.
It takes time to get there, but once self-respect has settled within you all of the noise of the outer world – of people telling you who to talk to, what to post, where to be – fades away.
Didion wrote it in her piece and it still holds true to this day: “… to free us from the expectations of others, to give back to ourselves – there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect.”