Living With Dignity

The New York Times has an interesting article entitled In Search of Dignity. If you get a chance, it’s a pretty good read.

The article talks primarily about George Washington and how he came to be viewed as dignified through his use of a list of 110 “Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.” One thing that is apparent from the article is that Washington worked at being dignified: he worked at living a life worthy of emulation.

Reading this reminded me of an article I published here about a year ago: Knowing and Living Your Values. The article is a reminder of the need for setting down and identifying your values, writing them out, and making sure you are really adhering to them as you go about your busy life. It also draws on the example of how Ben Franklin lived out his values:

Ben Franklin was famous for, among many other things, taking one value each week and working on it, really internalizing it. For example, one week he would take the value of integrity and would ensure that every action he took and every plan he made had that value in mind, upfront.

So, when I saw this morning’s NYT article and was reminded of my article, I thought it would be a good reminder for us all to note that: if we want to be viewed as a person of dignity, we have to work at it, as Franklin and Washington did. We have to know our values and stick with them, and they have to be worthy values.

It’s hard to get a reputation as a dignified person. It is all too easy, though, to strip someone of their dignity. If you have lived to be as old as I am, you can probably think back to where you have inadvertently done so.

For example, if you “deprive” someone of their need for independence (something most of us value), making them too dependent on you, you contribute to a loss of their dignity. If you are an employer, you can do this by making your employees feel that their livelihood depends on your generosity, rather than on their hard work and desires to do well. You can do this with anyone by making them think that their views do not matter and are not worthy of your attention.

Coming back full circle: we can not be viewed as dignified if we do not treat others with dignity. Thinking back over my rather long life, I cannot recall one person whom I really admired who did not view others with dignity and treat them with respect.

Why did I think these thoughts to be worthy of publishing? For one thing, I needed to hear them. This is me preaching to myself.

But, another reason is that it is so easy for all of us to want to label people as good or bad, rather than to just treat everyone with dignity and respect. It’s part of our evolutionary baggage, and the tendency to be this way will likely with be us for a long while. So we have to work at overcoming it.

Take care.