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'This page has been approved by the United Grand Lodge of England’
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2008 January February March April May June July August September October November December RW DGM' s MESSAGE FOR MAY 2008 SELF-RESPECT One quality that defines a person’s character and which these days is conspicuous by its absence is Self-Respect. Self-Respect may be defined as a standard of behaviour which one establishes for one-self as a sort of general bench-mark against which one determines one’s responses to any event, effect or external stimulus. It also represents Dignity. Very often Self-Respect is misunderstood by others to represent an inflated ego or empty pride from all of which it needs to be distinguished. Ego, pride and vanity stem more from a self-centeredness which puffs one up, basically stemming from feelings of insecurity. Self-Respect on the other hand emanates from a diligent accretion of virtues which seek to place one above the common-place, and certainly above the pull of vanity, greed, and self-importance. To give an extreme example no self-respecting person would steal candy from a child, or a coin from a blind beggar but what about the corrupting influence of seeking improper profits, or abuse of any office that one might for a time occupy. To thine own self be true is a good enough maxim or as it is in Masonic terms for one to dedicate oneself to such pursuits as may at once enable you to be respectable in life, useful to mankind and an ornament to Society. Ornaments of that kind have to be self-respecting ! |
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Maintained by
J.M.I. Sait for
the DGL - Madras |
