Self-Respect is as just as bad for your mind as alcohol!

“Alcohol, weed or any other form of ecstasy will help you loosen the psychological structure and makes you feel liberated at the moment, but without the required balance” — Sadhguru

The physical effect of any intoxicant is temporary, very temporary, but what about its effect on your mind! Does it not offer an ‘easier’ way-out from the problems we are currently dealing with? In-fact, is it not exactly why addicts take up intoxicants in the first place — to just delay or escape ever having to face the problem head-on. Will that ever help in the long-run?

But most of us are not addicts, just social drinkers, whats wrong in it? Nothing, as long as your mind does not treat alcohol (or any other drug) as an escape.

But enough with the preach, what about Self-Respect?

Respect is what others bestow upon you, not something that you assign yourself. Once you start respecting yourself, you start expecting the same respect (if not more) from the world, giving you a sense of entitlement. You do not do the ‘menial’ jobs, as an IIT/IIM graduate turned entrepreneur you do not travel with the delivery guy to directly interact with your customer, as a stand-up comedian you do not go to open mikes to practise your art. The above jobs are ‘beneath’ you.

Any ‘self-respecting’ person wouldn’t do this job? haven’t we all heard the above from someone or the other too often? More often than not, our decision not to partake in these activities is driven by our own insecurities

“An actor who cannot do comedy (make fun of herself/himself), can never be a good actor” — Shahrukh Khan

Growing up, our parents have convinced us that we are one-in-a-million, gone above and beyond to fulfil our needs, but once this kid is all grown up and independent, they do not get the same treatment from the rest of the society. They feel less valued and this starts to impact both their personal and professional relationships negatively.

We start to look for our purpose in life, looking for places where we could make an ‘impact’, we make more money in a year than what your parents made in their lifetime, have the latest technology at our finger-tips, have outsourced every ‘menial job’ job to the next big startup, but we are still un-happy!

So, what should we do? For starters, stop respecting yourselves, the world will do that once you go out their and bet on yourself. Do everything that is required to learn, face the problems head-on, ideate, discuss, collaborate and work-hard to find a solution.

Confidence is the key, not Self-Respect!