Respect adn Self-esteem
You may be wondering about the relationship between respect and self-esteem. Well then, let's get into it. Let me tell you a short story.
I was about 9 years old and I remember that seeing my parents smoke, in the car or in the house, made me incredibly nervous. That smell put me in a bad mood, made me nauseous and gave me a migraine. Entire trips with my head out the window like dogs sniffing all the smells in the world except that of my parents' cigarette. It was on one of those trips that I promised myself I would never smoke a cigarette. The truth is that, at some point in my life, I tried the damn thing and for years I never did without it again. I still remember my parents' disappointment and my paranoia at the age of 20 (not 15....) at having to tell them that I had joined the club.
What drives me nut today is the fact that I began out of fear of being excluded from what I considered, at the time, to be the best people I could surround myself with. And this is exactly what happens today when you do something just to look nice in front of that girl or boy that you consider to be cool.
Or you simply believe you can't risk being excluded from that 'cool' group and, so, you do everything you can to become one of them (in English it's called F.O.M.O. = Fear Of Missing Out).
It is easy to join the group, be part of it and, with a little more effort, focus on what our favourites are doing and imitate them. We try to be like them and follow them faithfully.
We accept to drink that beer that just makes us vomit, or we smoke that cigarette that, until a year before, we hated.
La verità è che un bel giorno mi sono reso conto che quella scelta non l’avevo fatta per me ma per qualcun altro. Così, ho deciso di mettere da parte il mio pacchetto ancora pieno e non ho più fumato per una decina d’anni. Ero arrabbiato con me stesso per la fatica con cui stavo affrontando quella scelta e odiavo chiunque mi fumasse attorno o ridesse della mia decisione. Poi tutto è sfumato ed oggi lo faccio solo in rarissimi casi * e senza la necessità di accondiscendere nessuno se non me stesso. Ecco perché la verità mi ha reso libero di scegliere senza external constraints or judgements I really don't need.
Just wanted to let you know that thanks to discipline I'v totally quit smoking.
