Self-Respect and Morale – ElPropósito2 min de lectura

How do we cultivate integrity and peace of mind?

Photo by Stillness InMotion on Unsplash

This week I read something that struck me: "You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end, which you can never afford to lose, with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be." James Stockdale. It touched a moral nerve and led me to write this post, especially because I think it carries an implicit message: do your job. We must hold ourselves in high regard at all times (self-respect) and keep doing our job even in the hardest circumstances (morale). What comes from doing this AT ALL TIMES?

In life we desire, we act and we consent. The problem lies in what we desire, where we direct our actions and how we react to different situations. Without a firm purpose, these three will very likely take us anywhere but where we truly want to go. We can live in the past without learning anything from it, which may be the greatest value the past offers. We can also live in an endless future without acting to build it. Either way, we end up living with low morale, walking without bearing fruit.

To keep morale high, we need to act, and to act we need direction, meaning, a reason for doing things. Our purpose gives us that direction. It’s a tool for making the best use of what’s in our hands. It’s usually very revealing to work out what’s truly in our hands to achieve something we want. One difficulty we run into is that we often do things just for the sake of doing them, and the result is always fruitless.

Respect is the recognition that something is worthy and should be tolerated. Self-respect is doing the right thing always, at all times. It means paying attention to how we react to what life puts in front of us. Yet as long as we live in the future or the past, and fail to live in the present with a clear purpose, we’ll keep wandering through life, blind to the actions, however small, that lift our spirit and make us better people every day, and better teams, companies and organizations.

In the worst adversity, we must keep faith that things will get better. That’s the first half of the game. Taking action is how we’ll always win it, the second half. "Lameness is an impediment to the leg, but not to the will. Say this to yourself about everything that happens to you, for you will find it to be an impediment to something else, but not truly to yourself." Epictetus

Warm regards and all the best,

• Rodrigo Baccaro

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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