There are moments in life when someone keeps crossing your boundaries, speaking to you without respect or making you feel that your needs do not matter. You may try explaining yourself, asking for better treatment, or even changing yourself to keep the peace. But sometimes, maybe, the more you tolerate, the less seriously people take you. That raises a question: Can you really expect others to value you when you have stopped valuing yourself?
Fyodor Dostoyevsky explored that difficult relationship between dignity, humiliation and human behavior in his 1861 novel The Insulted and the Injured. His words remain striking because self-respect is not always about demanding respect from others. Sometimes, it begins with deciding what you will no longer accept.
