Consider that when you feel angry, no matter how justified, you have chosen anger. You have abetted it. You say you want peace, yet who is it who has chosen anger? Did someone force you?

You feel that rights of yours have been infringed upon. And yet, when you feel angry, you have given up your right to peace.

When you have been underestimated and someone else's opinion of themselves is flaunted, you become a bull who sees a red cape. That is another way of saying you become unseeing.

No one has more rights than you. No matter what another's assumed position in life may be, no matter where they put you in their estimation, they do not have the say over you. When you become angry, you must think they do. When you take affront, you have conceded something that was not yours to concede. Your worth is not negotiable. No one makes your worth more or less except as you accept their estimation of you. You who disagree so vehemently to their appraisal apparently agree that their appraisal means something, and so you dispute it.

When you take offense, when you feel lowered in someone's estimation, when it hurts your heart, it must be that you are listening more to someone else than you are listening to Me. You believe what they say about you and don't believe what I say, or you forget altogether about what I say. You believe in their perception or else you would not fight it.

No other person has dominion over your consciousness. No one has the authority to decide who you are for you. They may seem to lord over you, but they are revealing their own weakness.

One who puts another down does not value himself enough. Therefore he pushes down on another in order to justify himself and raise himself up. Ultimately the value another puts on you is the value they put on themselves.

When someone finds fault with merchandise, they often want to buy it at a lower price. When someone puts you down, they are bargain-hunters. They don't want to pay you your worth. But you do not have to accept their offer. You do not have to give yourself away at another's bidding.

Now is time in the world for everyone to be generous. Pay well for what you receive. Pay well in coin. Pay well in regard. Pay well in appreciation. You are worth whatever amount it costs you to be generous. You are meant to be a giver, not a taker. Certainly, you are not meant to be a taker of offense.

If someone has been ungenerous to you, be generous to them in understanding.

Someone else may hoard their love, but that does not mean you are to.

Consider yourself leaven and help another to rise. They have forgotten who they are. They have forgotten their place in the world. Their place in the world is not the same as what their position in the world may be.

You have something important to do in the world, and no one's misdemeanors are to sidetrack you. You are on a mission of love, and it is not for you to let another make you feel less than you are. No one has the right to detract from you. Therefore, you do not have the right to let another distract you from what you are here for.