The world is suffering from a pandemic of indignity.
It shows up every day in big and small ways—in the wars taking place all over the world, as well as the unnamed wars inside our workplaces, schools, churches, in our families and within ourselves. These wars share the same root cause: We have lost sight of a fundamental truth about the human condition; that we are all born worthy of being treated as something of value.
All human beings are unique; there is only one copy of us around. Something so precious deserves to be treated as invaluable, priceless, and irreplaceable. Yet, not a day goes by when we don’t experience some kind of violation to our dignity—a rude remark, a critical tone of voice, a dismissive gesture intended to make us feel small. We all know the crushing and intolerable feeling of being shamed.
