A piece of vent art I found in my archives. Did this near the beginning of the year I think, I can't really remember.

I'm sure most people are raised to believe in the THREE Rs:

- Respect for Yourself.

• Respect Others.
  
• Responsibility for your Actions.

Very simple rules to follow and they often help in situations here and there. One R can not exist without the other Rs. That's the way it goes.

Respect for Yourself:

- Everything starts with you. If you wish to be a good person, you must respect yourself. Respecting yourself means that you have a positive way of thinking about yourself and life in general. Ups and downs still come and go, but with the respect you have for yourself, you will learn to get out of your depression quickly. You know that you are a good person and you will never do anything to hurt yourself, physically, mentally and spiritually. You will feel a nice sense of Honor and Pride within.

Respect Others:

- In order to respect yourself means that you are respect others. You put yourself in their shoes and you go to their level to understand their points of view as well as their feelings. You know how they feel. You have probably been there. You know it's a terrible feeling. Being a good person, you respect them and know their pain and try to help them get out of it.

Responsibility for your Actions:

- If you respect yourself and you think of others, you must take Responsibility for any actions you commit, good or bad. Any actions that led to a negative outcome that you have done, intentional or accidental, to you or someone else, you must take responsibility for them and try to make things better. Turn the negative into something positive that works for both you and the person you respect.

These are very simple rules. However, some good hearted people tend to forget the most important of the THREE Rs: *Respect yourself.*

You still respect others, maybe more than you respect yourself. You go out of your way to make them happy and content. You make sure that you don't show that you are in pain inside and try to keep a smile on your face for them so they won't have to worry about you. You swallow your own depression and pride while you are with them. Sometimes you even lie to them when they ask you how you are feeling. You keep that state of mind reminds you that everyone but YOU are more important and thus should be TREATED with more respect than you do yourself - they are better than you and you are just a bug among kings and gods.

You take responsibility for your actions, maybe a bit too much. You know the only person to hurt your own body or state of mind is you and you alone. Scars, tears, ripped out hair, damage to your body or mental state, you blame it all on yourself. This state of mind that you created tells you that you are not impornat and whatever you do, mistake or not, you must take responsibility for any damage or wrong doing you have done to yourself and others. Small stuff like bumping into someone by accident or eating someone else's candy, you feel like you have done something extremely evil and vile and that you must heavily apologize and beg for their forgiveness. Even after apologizing, you feel worthless and your soul is smashed like a small bug underneath another's shoe.

The truth is, *if you don't respect yourself, you are not respecting others around you, even those who care deeply about you*. You must remember that there are people who care about you and want to see you just as happy as you want to see them. By not respecting yourself and trying to hide the fact that you are depressed and manipulating your state of mind to the point of lying to them, you don't respect them and try to push them away. From your lies, do you still claim responsibility over your actions to your friends who love you? Do you apologize to them for lying about how you feel? Is your apology real or another coverup? If not, do you apologize for giving them a false apology? And on and on it goes.

Not following the FIRST R in the THREE R's means that none of the following rules apply, no matter how hard you try to make it work. Respecting yourself should be on the very top and should NOT be anywhere else in the list. You need to respect yourself in order to understand and respect others around you. By respecting others around you, you are smart enough to take responsibility for any harm you have caused to the people you respect, including yourself. Following these small rules makes you a good person. You DON'T NEED to feel like shit and unimportant to others. Your DON'T NEED to beg for forgiveness from doing something that another would see as totally harmless. You know yourself. You know how others feel around you. You understand that you are responsible for misdeeds you have done.

In order to be the best person you can be, you must first RESPECT YOURSELF. After that, RESPECT THOSE AROUND YOU just as much as YOU RESPECT YOURSELF. Knowing that, you understand what things you did wrong or if something you said and your actions was not MEANT to be negative or hurtful, and you take RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS. Apologizing to those you respect means that you respect them and thus respect yourself.

• O.Kemono

artwork © 2013 Alex Cockburn