Dignity, A Basic Human Concept

Honesty, for someone who was all about being honest, there is not dignity without honesty and that is the hardest thing that I've ever have to do. For some reason I'm not good with being honest with my feelings, perhaps because I'm afraid that people will hate me or let me go because of my feelings. But I also know that I don't need them. I can live without them. And they probably have ulterior motives anyway, like using me.

And I think that everything that I've been looking for, like myself, has been there all the time, but for some reason, I made finding it complicated. Perhaps it was the secret belief that I could never do anything, especially aspire to greatness. Me, love someone? No. Me lose weight on my own? Have discipline to workout consistently or eat healthy? Be able to approach someone without creeping them out? Say something without sounding stupid or akward? Carry on a conversation without being wrong? No not me. Ever.

But deeper still is the secret belief that I have held for years: Someone love me? For me, flaws and all? Someone other than my family. Someone of the outside who loves more for no reason other than they appreciate me. Someone who doesn't need me to make them feel better. Or someone to live through me to rectify their past mistakes. Someone who loves me unconditionally. Not because they have to or because they are nice people, but because I am genuinely a loveable person.

Can someone love me for me? Without using me or me having to work for it, without me sacrifcing part of my soul, health, mind or body for their love and acceptance? Is it possible? I don't know, but what I do know is that.... I'm scared as heck to put myself out there.

I've heard all the self-help stuff talking about self-defeating thoughts, etc, but its not clicking or it gets jumbled up with everything else. Maybe I'm trying to hard.

But I'm starting to think that the mind has its own immune system, its own need to establish equilibrium, and I don't need to help it along. Its smart enought to settle itself out and estalish a sense of normalcy, not too much one way or the other. But its the fears and defenses erected in the heart that act as a McDonald's Double Bacon Cheeseburger with extramayo and a large fry and an extralarge coke to wash it down. The fear acts as a deterrant from allowing the mind to get back to normalcy or to grow in a healthy way. Just as the McDonald's value meal clogs up the arties.

So... Where am I going with all this? I'm still not sure but I know that it all works out... But its out, of me, of my heart and mind.

I don't need to be afraid and control the situation and worry about it. Simply be honest with people about how they make me feel because I'm slowly learning who I am. And when you figure that out, you can't hide things, you can't deny and lie to yourself that someone else's actions were justified when they hurt you.

Whats the saying by Cicero? "Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?" And "Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them" by Aristotle, or "One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered" as said by Michael J. Fox

And honesty of my feelings has always been hard for me... I don't know why, but it has. But I read somewhere that I am responsible to teach others how to treat me. Darn it... Why does all this not make sense at the time that I learn it? I could've saved myself so much troube... Oh well, welcome to humandom, Alisha.

"The only kind of dignity which is genuine is that which is not diminished by the indifference of others." So No more Miss Nice Girl? Hardly not. I'm still nice but not to a fault. I'm going to be honest with how I feel (this is a promise to myself), and if I have to raise my voice or even be a witch until someone gets it, oh well... Its like my Shirt said, "I don't want to be that person that was yelling at everyone to round them up, but if I have to, I will."

Its like the Wall of China; you can see it and you know its there from space, but it doesn't hit you until you crash into it.

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