Happy Global Dignity Day! I’m Hannah Telluselle and this is The Source Podcast, your source of inspiration and good things. Today’s episode is dedicated to dignity. What is dignity and how can we treat others with more dignity?
Every human being has an innate worth, just by being born. Just by being the same human as everybody else, we’re allowed to have our basic needs met and have the right to fair treatment and respect. When it comes down to the basic needs of clean water, food and shelter, what your name is, your gender or your race, should never have to be considered. Neither to be able to wear clean clothes. It should be a necessity, that we all should honor and uphold in society for everybody.
We’ve just seen on the news how thousands of people in Europe have taken to the streets to protest the high costs of living. While this doesn’t include the right to destroy anyone’s property, of course, the message is clear and needed. Having a home, is a basic need and right, that allows someone privacy and caretaking of oneself, according to one’s own individual preferences and needs. We should all be able to clothe ourselves according to our own taste without any extreme costs and without being questioned by authority.
I have.
Once during winter 2014 for example, when I applied for social security in Sweden, I was told by the office manager that I could just sell my winter jacket. And go nude? Was mine of an expensive brand? Of course not, I had paid about 30 dollars in a thrift store for it. So, I couldn’t even sell if I wanted to. How could I even had been able to buy anything expensive without any income and with only social security, which was denied several months a year without any substitute so much I became homeless in 2009. That studio apartment in Malmö, cost 2800 SEK per month back then. A bed at a woman’s shelter, that the social worker ended up having to pay, cost 13 000 SEK per month. How is that for wasting taxpayer money? And my life. This is why I moved back to Honolulu in 2010, to study again with student loan, since I was unemployed in Sweden. And with more than 5 years of university studies already under my belt, my own prior business as a life coach and a former education as a copywriter in advertising with another 5 years of of work experience. And how is it now? Better? No, I’m just about to lose my home again, including all the furniture I just finished paying off to the social security that first bought them three years ago.
What if we all lived rent-free in houses old enough to already have been paid off? Even if we don’t own our own apartments, our rent still pays off a mortgage to begin with to the developer. But after some 15 years, it most likely is paid off in full and the developer just collects rents as their own income, but for the maintenance.
I have been unemployed here in Sweden for years again, but for some short American freelance assignments online and receiving some grants. And this, even though I’m the one who introduced personal coaching for unemployed in Sweden in 2003, that more than 650 businesses work with for more than 50 000 unemployed people nowadays, all paid for by the Swedish state job agency. But all my applications are refused everywhere by everyone. And I never get any answers, neither by the businesses, the job agency or the Swedish Department of Labor.
It would be one thing, if nobody was interesting in job coaching here, or if it wouldn’t be financially possible. But with 50 000 available paying clients, I should be able to coach at least a dozen. Would those 650 businesses in Sweden even exist with their revenue, if it wasn’t for me? Is that treating me with respect and dignity?
Do I then treat others with respect and dignity myself, perhaps you might wonder? I always try to. I was raised noble where being polite is the foundation of our behavior, which together with my years in Hawaii and experiencing the Aloha-spirit first-hand with their generosity of heart, have enabled me to enforce treating others with dignity my whole life.
Closely related to dignity, is integrity. First, we must feel our own integrity and worth, then we must respect the other. You can disagree with someone and still treat them with respect. It’s only when someone stops another to get their needs met, their actual needs, not just wants, there is a danger of irreconcilable differences and things turning ugly. There’s an old saying: Live and let live. That’s how easy it is. If everybody just allowed everybody else to live their own best life, everybody would have what they need and live well. At least if we divided our resources evenly.
When we uphold someone’s worth as humans, or for something they have accomplished, we treat each other with dignity.
To find your own dignity, ask yourself: Which are your standards? Where do you draw the line for unacceptable behavior both on your own, towards others and how others treat you? Some people like to think that respect is supposed to be earned, or that some should be treated better than others. Maybe you even believe that you should be treated like somebody special. So is not the case. Equality works both upwards and downwards. Who can you show more respect today?
The next episode of The Source Podcast is published on October 24th, to honor United Nations Day. Tune in on October the 24th, to receive a life coaching tip about being a global citizen.
To listen to this blogpost as a podcast, find The Source Podcast on Spotify, Apple and YouTube.
