I Can't Hear You!

"In my day, we didn't have self-esteem, we had self-respect, and no more of it than we had earned." --Jane Haddam


I don’t know who Jane Haddam is, but she has irked me. The phrase "in my day" implies that her day was superior to my day. Now the thing is that I agree with what she is trying to say. But by starting out with the clear intention to slam "my day," completely stopped up my ears so that I could not listen to what followed.
What a shame.
Now if I was so offended that I couldn’t hear what she had to say, how do I know that the last part of the message has any worth to it.

Maturity.
Somewhere along the line, you learn to look at things in spite of how they are presented and judge the worth aside from the presenter.

It goes both ways. Sometimes the presenter has charisma and fills your ear with a bunch of nonsense that sure sounds good.

Or the presenter has the personality of a wart-covered toad and has a message of truth that sounds like a scum-covered pond full of insults.

Discernment.
Discernment comes with maturity. When you can
strip away the distracters and
focus on the content of the message and
make your judgments at that point, then you are operating on a standard God will bless.

Ms Jane Haddam was trying to say that self-esteem handed to you because the teacher or parent is afraid of bruising your ego isn’t worth much. Self-respect gained from your doing a job to the best of your ability will earn you a glow from the inside out.

At least, that is my interpretation. What’s yours?