Mr Hopkins, dear fellow students:

My topic today is self-respect. We live in a world where how you look and what you accomplish define who you are. This puts us under a lot of pressure. Even though low self esteem is not a problem for all of us, we will all face situations where we feel that we are not good enough, or can not live up to others’ expectations. At least for me, the most difficult thing to learn in life is still learning to respect myself.

When we compare ourselves with others, we will find that there are always people who are better than us. For example: at school, we easily compare ourselves to other students. When someone writes a better essay, seems to pass all courses without working much, or gets better grades in everything, we might feel somewhat bad about it. Some people might call it jealousy, but I think it is all because of a lack of self-respect: people who trust themselves in everything would have no reason to feel bad about someone else’s success. The key to this problem seems to be simple: learn to respect yourself, and others will respect you. People who respect themselves appear to be happy and confident in every situation.

Then why is it so hard to respect oneself? There are many reasons. Some people are concerned about their looks. If they don’t look like the people on magazine covers, they worry that their social status is not high enough. If you think back to your own life, maybe you can find situations where you have felt bad about yourself. Maybe you were teased as a child; maybe a teacher once told you that you should do better. Especially for a teenager, the feedback coming from others is of crucial importance, and the lack of positive comments might ruin the teenager’s self esteem.

Sometimes you feel like you’re not getting anywhere, no matter how much you work for it. Then, all you can do is to make a decision to just go on trying. Self-respect is often about small things: if you can’t seem to get where you’re going, you can still respect yourself for trying. Positive experiences and good feelings will always lift your self esteem. You just need to keep telling yourself that, despite the mistakes you have made or will make, you are just as good as anyone else. And eventually, you will believe it.

In my opinion, one major reason for low self esteem is that we are afraid. We look at other people making bold and daring choices in their lives, and taking risks, and we just don’t seem to be capable of taking those steps ourselves. The problem is that we are too afraid to really put ourselves into it. Don’t be afraid of making a fool of yourself. Dare to take risks; life would be boring without them. Don’t get embarrassed over small things. Just laugh at them, and the world will know that you are comfortable with yourself.

I got my driving licence a week ago. Going to the driving school was a huge step for me. I was afraid of driving, because I didn’t want to cause an accident. But the major reason for not wanting to drive was that I was afraid of being bad at it. Now, I have always been a good student. But I have never been good with practical things, machines, technologies in general, or activities which require a lot of physical coordination. I was afraid of making a fool of myself.

But the driving school taught me more than just driving. I learned how easy it is to make stupid mistakes, but also how easy it is to just leave them behind — to learn from them and then forget about them, no harm done. And just like it was in the driving school, in real life I will always have people standing by me. They will trust me, they will help me see the right lane when I’m confused, and they won’t laugh at me if I make a mistake. I still don’t trust myself as a driver, but I can respect myself for having become one. I know that over time I will become more confident.

The idea of self-respect is familiar to us already from the golden rule: you have to respect others like you respect yourself. This is most often seen as a guideline for respecting others. But if you stop to think about that sentence for a moment, it also tells you to respect yourself: to respect others like you respect yourself. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." This is something to think about.

But be careful: I would like to remind you that respecting yourself does not mean that you should be selfish. When you learn to respect yourself, you will start looking at life differently. Hopefully, from that new point of view, you will find that you and every person in this world is beautiful, talented and worth respecting.

To finish, I would like to recite an extract from a poem called Desiderata, by Max Ehrmann:

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Thank you.