Happiness or Self-Respect?

Asking to decide which is more important between happiness and self-respect is like asking which tastes better: ice cream or apple pie? In my opinion, a person needs the right balance of both in order to be at peace with themselves. How can a person be truly happy if they do not respect themselves and everything that they stand for as a human being? How can a person respect themselves if they are not happy in life? These two feelings go hand in hand.
The problem becomes finding the right balance that fulfills a person. We all can identify a person we have come across in our lives that buries themselves in their schoolwork or career. A person who works so hard at what they do can have many motives, but more often than not, a motivation is the self respect they gain out of their success. For some people, the self-respect they gain can lead to their happiness. However, there are people out there who are so focused on gaining respect (both from themselves and from others) that they lose those things that really make a person happy such as family, friends, and hobbies. When a person is too focused on self-respect, the pursuit of happiness takes a back seat.
On the other side, a person who only seeks pleasure, or happiness, can often forget the maintenance of self-respect. I believe that happiness is more dependent on self-respect than self-respect is on happiness. A person can be happy by the self-respect they acquire through hard work, but I feel that some self-respect is necessary before happiness can come. The absence of self-respect will never result in a sense of happiness. I feel that a person who only seeks happiness without seeking self-respect can sometimes lead to an impulsive or irrational person. Happiness is something I believe every human being hopes and strives for, but in our quest to achieve it we cannot forget to stay true to ourselves and our beliefs which in turn, will maintain self-respect.
One problem with finding a balance between happiness and self-respect is that sometimes we don’t know how to go about achieving these feelings. The reason there is some much trouble is because what makes us happy and respectful of ourselves differs between every person. For some, self-respect comes from how they interact with others, their family or co workers, or even teammates. For others, self-respect may come from how much they achieve and their success in different areas in life. The road to achieving happiness differs even more between different people. Every person has their own opinion on what aspects of life are most important. I think that if a person can achieve happiness in their own important aspects of life, the happiness can spread through the other areas of their lives.
Self-respect and happiness are not necessarily one in the same, but are dependent on each other. There are people who go their entire lives finding the right balance to achieve a feeling of contentment. All we can do is continue our journeys through life finding what fulfills us as individuals because it will be different for each and every person, and no one else can find it for us.