What's Matters More...

Happiness comes and goes but your self-respect is something that last a life time. It’s usually the most trivial things that make us happy, I mean think of the last thing to make you happy. For me it was getting my niece to sleep so I could do this assignment, in the grand scheme of things that isnt really important. Will I still be happy tomorrow that I got her to sleep today? Probably not, because tomorrow I will have another assignment due, so while it makes me happy now it is just a temporary trivial kind of happy. What made you happy before that? Will that still make you happy tomorrow? What about the day after that, will it still make you just as happy? I would venture to guess the answer is no. My point is the things that make us happy are usually insignificant in the greater picture of one’s life. There are special occasions that are different don’t get me wrong there is an acceptation to every rule, but I would venture to say that the happiness one receives from their self-respect lasts a life time. Self-respect is in my opinion the most important thing a person can have without it we are nothing. Firstly I believe one cannot expect respect from others if they do not first respect themselves. Second I believe it is our self-respect that makes us credible to others. Think for a minute would you want to be friends with someone who had no self-respect? Hmmm what is self-respect you ask, well that is up for debate because I am sure we all have our own opinions as to what constitutes self-respect. For me to have self-respect means that you respect yourself, you do not conduct yourself in inappropriate ways, you make the right decision even if it’s not easy. Self-respect cannot be bought no amount of money can make someone respect themselves. This is different from happiness because happiness can be bought. Permeate happiness may not be able to be bought but temporary happiness does have a price. For example remember when we were little and our parents would bring us home a new toy, it made us happy, maybe it was the toy or the idea that our parents were thinking about us, either way it made us happy. Doing the right thing does not have a price; our self respect is ultimately the only thing we have. Think about what happened when we die, what is left, nothing but the memories the people who have come in contact with us have. So if you die what do you want people to remember, you were so happy, or you were a good person with self-respect. In case it isnt clear in my opinion ones self-respect is far more important than ones happiness, but I argue that if one has self-respect from that comes happiness.