I wrote something once. Just a few lines, scribbled down because something in me needed to say it out loud.

“Showing regard and appreciation for the worth of someone or something. It means honor. It means valuing each other’s points of view. It means being humble when you’re right and being open to being wrong. It means accepting people for who they are. It’s the foundation of love, friendship and loyalty … respect.”

I still believe every word of that.

Here is what I’ve learned about respect that nobody wants to say plainly.

You can’t scrub yourself clean. You can’t wash away the grit and grime of your mistakes no matter how hard you try. And the people who spend their lives pretending otherwise, performing a version of themselves that has no history, no damage, no regret, they’re the most lost of all.

Your mistakes happened. They’re written into you. Part of your story. And the only honest thing to do is stand in that truth without flinching.

That’s not shame. That’s ownership. And ownership is where self-respect actually begins.

Ego is the voice that says I can’t be wrong. I can’t be flawed. I can’t let them see that. Ego is exhausting because it’s a full-time lie. It turns every conversation into a defense and every relationship into a performance.

Self-respect is quieter, more dignified. It says, I know what I’ve done. I know where I’ve fallen short. And I’m still worth something. Not because I’ve earned a perfect record. Not because I’ve convinced anyone of anything. Just because I’m human. And no human gets out of this life without grit under their fingernails.

Nobody’s perfect. And the ones who pretend otherwise are the ones paying the highest price. Say it plainly and it sounds simple. Live it honestly and it costs you something.

We say “I was going through something” instead of “I was wrong.” We say “you misunderstood me” instead of “I hurt you.”

The people I trust most in this life aren’t the ones who never made mistakes. They’re the ones who looked at their mistakes directly and didn’t look away. Who said, “that was me, I did that and I’m sorry. I’m not proud of it but I’m still here.”

We’re so quick to reduce people. To take the worst thing someone has done and decide that’s all they are. We do it to strangers, we do it to people we love and we do it, quietly, brutally, to ourselves.

But a person is never just their worst moment. We’re the whole complicated mess of it. The grief and the grace. The failure and the trying. The grime and the growth.

To respect that, in yourself and in others, is one of the most demanding things a human being can practice.

Let me tell you about a woman I met on the street.

She approached me and asked for some change. I handed her ten dollars. She looked at it, then looked at me, and said something I’ll never forget.

“I don’t want to do this. I was somebody’s baby once.”

She wasn’t asking for money anymore. She was asking for the one thing that’s harder to give than anything in your wallet. She wanted to walk away with her dignity still intact. She wanted someone to see her, not her situation, not the stereotype, not the worst chapter of a life she never planned, just her. She said, “The hardest thing about being homeless is being invisible.” With tears in my eyes, I told her there’s no judgment here. Everyone’s flawed. Everybody goes through hard times. Things will get better for you.

I don’t know if they did. I hope they did.

But I know this: in that moment, she taught me more about respect than anything I’ve ever learned. Because she already understood it. She knew what she deserved. She hadn’t forgotten her own worth even when the world had done its best to erase her and make her forget.

I was somebody’s baby once.

So were you. So was I. So is everyone who’s ever made a mistake, carried shame or stood in a place they never imagined they would.

And here’s the final truth. When you can look at yourself honestly, when you can accept who you really are and own what you’ve done without hiding from it, something remarkable happens. You stop seeing other people through the smudged lens of your own unresolved shame. You start seeing them clearly. Not as their worst moment. Not as their mistakes. But as someone just like you, trying, failing, getting back up and deserving of the same grace you finally gave yourself.

That’s the gift of self-respect. It doesn’t just change how you see yourself. It changes how you see everyone.

Respect IS the foundation of love, friendship and loyalty. It’s the foundation of any life worth living.

And it begins the moment you stop waiting to be perfect before you decide you matter.

Corey Bergeron is a classically trained chef based in Weare with his wife and daughter.