By Hiba Itani
Today, my thoughts wander back to a quote that my teacher in middle school used to repeat a lot: “Respect yourself to be respected”.When I first heard that quote, it didn’t make any sense to me. OKAY…I will respect myself, but that will only make me respected by me, not by others!! Years later, I began to understand what is really meant by self respect; I began to understand why it didn’t make any sense to me earlier. It was mainly because I was thinking of self respect as a passive impression or a means to an end, while in fact it is a quest by itself.When I think about the things I regret, I think about the times that I have wasted, the words that I should not have said, the actions that I should have done, and those that I should have avoided. What hurts most about my regrets is that I could have done all of these things differently, but I made the wrong decisions, even though I knew better! I didn’t respect my time enough to use it more productively. I didn’t respect my sanity enough to think more wisely. I didn’t respect my energy enough to attend to all my duties and take initiative. Simply, I didn’t respect my life enough to live it right!I now see that it shouldn’t matter to me if people respect me, but it sure should matter to me whether or not I respect myself and the time I have in this life, for that is all I can offer to myself.Allah, the Most Merciful, has planted within us the need to strive for happiness and dignity, and has shown us the right way to do so. The funny thing is, that most of the time, what is standing between us and achieving that is no one other than ourselves!!There is a big difference between respect and slavery. The question we should ask ourselves is: Do we really respect and care about ourselves? Do we want the best for ourselves? Or are we merely the slaves of own desires, wasting time and energy, disregarding our sanity, and standing in the way of ourselves?Now is the time for reassessment. Now is the time for regrets to be transformed into something beautiful: Change. Now, before the last breath escapes and regrets become nothing more than a vicious enemy.
Today, my thoughts wander back to a quote that my teacher in middle school used to repeat a lot: “Respect yourself to be respected”.When I first heard that quote, it didn’t make any sense to me. OKAY…I will respect myself, but that will only make me respected by me, not by others!! Years later, I began to understand what is really meant by self respect; I began to understand why it didn’t make any sense to me earlier. It was mainly because I was thinking of self respect as a passive impression or a means to an end, while in fact it is a quest by itself.When I think about the things I regret, I think about the times that I have wasted, the words that I should not have said, the actions that I should have done, and those that I should have avoided. What hurts most about my regrets is that I could have done all of these things differently, but I made the wrong decisions, even though I knew better! I didn’t respect my time enough to use it more productively. I didn’t respect my sanity enough to think more wisely. I didn’t respect my energy enough to attend to all my duties and take initiative. Simply, I didn’t respect my life enough to live it right!I now see that it shouldn’t matter to me if people respect me, but it sure should matter to me whether or not I respect myself and the time I have in this life, for that is all I can offer to myself.Allah, the Most Merciful, has planted within us the need to strive for happiness and dignity, and has shown us the right way to do so. The funny thing is, that most of the time, what is standing between us and achieving that is no one other than ourselves!!There is a big difference between respect and slavery. The question we should ask ourselves is: Do we really respect and care about ourselves? Do we want the best for ourselves? Or are we merely the slaves of own desires, wasting time and energy, disregarding our sanity, and standing in the way of ourselves?Now is the time for reassessment. Now is the time for regrets to be transformed into something beautiful: Change. Now, before the last breath escapes and regrets become nothing more than a vicious enemy.
:)
ReplyDeleteAmazing! I love every single word written in this essay :)
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