Want More Respect?

Remember Uriah Heep from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens? Dickens gives him a marvelous hidden agenda behind a veneer of self-righteous humility. In fact, it’s exaggerated to sound humorous, as Uriah Heep says to David Copperfield:

  “I shouldn’t have deemed it at all proud if you had thought us too ‘umble for you. Because we are so very ‘umble.” 

With Uriah Heep’s distortion of humility, we want to push his humble pie right back in his face. True respect and humility cannot come from a sense of self that’s been wrung out like a wash cloth or from sniveling insecurity.

Real humility is all together one of the most powerful qualities in our lives. When we say we are sorry, or forgive someone, we say it with humility and sincerity or it means nothing. When we show real respect, there cannot be fear, or coercion. If there is, it is false. True respect comes from our humility. It comes from the well-being and strength of our core being.

It has been said that powerful people show humility and respect, because they are not threatened by showing it. They know who they are.

It seems a universal law, that when we show honor and respect to others, it boomerangs right back at us. In that same moment, we automatically honor and respect to ourselves.

So, go on…show yourself some respect.

Get More Respect