We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.
They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
| — | Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
Keep this one in your back pocket for the next time someone acts like an ass and then tells you they’ve been through a lot of stuff. Respectful and yet still firmly keeping respect for yourself. |
Respect for myself…this is new to me, for I have not really ever been aware of a “self” to respect! The self I knew was more a naught than a presence. What I was not plus who I was not added up to me equalling naught, and thus I never respected myself.
I do now…and taking responsibility for shortcomings does not make me responsible for the distortions and poor choices of others in reaction to them. I can joyfully embrace my opportunity to express my true remorse in not being the perfect person I desired to be and not being “the best (fill in the blank)” I could be…
…but then letting someone add cruelty to this? Allowing them to dehumanize me, devalue me? Diminish me?
Nah, I don’t think so…not going there anymore. Respect for myself means that I own my behavior and let everything else go, and oddly, I think this sets other people free by placing them in accountability for their own choices in how to respond to my shortcomings and places a responsibility to respect themselves by acknowledging their own failures.
Hey, if Victor Frankl can overcome what he did, choose a proactive life in spite of those grave horrors? So can I…and so can you.
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Charissa Grace
Charissa's Grace Notes 
You must be logged in to post a comment.