“What you see in the world exists within you.” ~Anon. Nobody can talk down to you without your consent because you are letting their words affect your feelings, if it was that easy to change your feelings about yourself, I’d make a fortune by going around the world telling everybody they’re brilliant, but it isn’t that easy to change a person’s opinion of themselves.
What’s really happening is you’re letting their words bring out the insecurities you haven’t dealt with or accepted about yourself. You feel people are not respecting you when in reality it’s your own self-respect that’s being lowered. You are being your own worst enemy, seeing insults where no insults were intended.
The old adage, “you should never allow the words of somebody you wouldn’t go to for advice affect your state of mind,” springs to mind.
That’s not to say that there aren’t some people in the world who think their **** doesn’t smell and they have the right to speak to you any way they please, however, if your self-confidence is rock solid their words will fall off you like water off a duck’s back.
Building self-confidence takes time and effort and begins with understanding, “in the grand scheme of events you know nothing.” When you understand that statement there’s only one direction you can travel.
I’ve known for quite a while how little I know and I know I can learn from every interaction I have with other people because everybody knows something I don’t.
Your world will be a better place to be when you concentrate on what you can control. I’ll leave you with this thoughtful prayer.
“God, grant me the Serenity to Accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.” ~ theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.
