Somehow, having really short hair helps me to feel dignified. I never look in the mirror anymore and think “oh you look terrible.” I know that physical appearance is only a very small part of being dignified, but I feel like it helps. 5 years ago

I cried a lot yesterday. I don’t think crying has to be undignified.
It showed the people I was leaving that I cared. 6 years ago

I need to keep more of a record of when I act with dignity and when I don’t. Also, I think I am sometimes confusing dignity with seriousness and this is obviously a mistake.
How do you maintain dignity when someone criticizes you for something you felt was a good thing to do? Do you agree with them (weak) or do you argue your point (agressive)? I tend to miss the middle ground. There must be a middle ground. Surely. I just need to find it. 6 years ago

I only have about 2 weeks of this job left, but I will have a new co-teacher for these 2 weeks as it is the beginning of the new school year. I met him yesterday and he was the complete opposite of my last co-teacher. Calm, relaxed, open and he actually listened te me when I spoke. I’m disappointed in a way that I will only be working with him for 2 weeks. It would have been so nice to have worked with him all year. It is so much easier to be dignified around people who also act with dignity. 6 years ago

I had an argument with a colleague this week, something I have never done before and only did this time in order to save my ever sinking self-esteem. But god, it felt undignified. I hate confrontation so much. 6 years ago

I think that making the effort to come into physical contact from time to time is part of having grace and dignity. It doesn’t have to be extensive, just enough to show a bit of humanity.

I am really not good at allowing myself to touch and be touched. I like to maintain a bubble of private space around me at all times. But I have noticed that I’m getting better at it. Today when I was teaching my English class, one woman said something that was perfectly comprehensible to me, but that another woman in the class decided was incorrect English and proceeded to laugh at. She giggled for some time, repeating over and over what the poor woman had said. I instinctively leaned over to the woman who had said the (perfectly correct) phrase and touched her on the arm and said that I had understood her. I really needed to show her, without saying too much, that I was on her side and that she shouldn’t be embarrassed.

I think Korea is teaching me the importance of physical contact. I will never get to their level of holding hand in the street with friends, but maybe I am learning to break through my (apparently) stand-offish exterior. 6 years ago

• talk more quietly
• listen more carefully
• stop before I speak 6 years ago

I spent an entire day yesterday feeling completely undignified. 2 teachers from my school took me shopping in Seoul, which was very kind of them but they didn’t speak much English so I spent the whole day completely confused about what was going on. Confusion is not really condusive to a feeling of dignity. Also, one of the women clearly thought I was about 3 years old and therefore entirely incapable of navigating objects/cars in the street by myself without walking into them. So whenever she saw something that the poor, clueless foreigner would probably walk into/get hit by, she would grab my arm and forcibly remove me from harm’s way.
This got rather irritating to be honest and it showed my how easily my pride is damaged. Too easily. I should have more of a sense of humour about these things. 6 years ago

... that in order to have dignity, you need a strong sense of who you are and what you believe in. At the moment I feel like I have neither of these things. What am I doing? Why am I doing it? What do I really believe? 6 years ago

Dignity is so important to me and yet I am constantly behaving in a stupid, petty, childish way that must make me look pathetic.

Dignified people are quietly confident, calm, never bitchy and always graceful. I, on the other hand, am chronically insecure, irritable, moody, critical and grumpy.

sigh6 years ago