If I were to treat my deepest wants with full seriousness—

In human beings, joy in the mere fact of existing is a core meaning of healthy self-esteem. It is a state of one who is at war neither with self nor with others.

If self-esteem is confidence in one’s appropriateness to life, then we can readily understand why men and women of high self-esteem tend to expect success and happiness and why, as a consequence, they are likely to create these conditions for themselves. Men and women of low self-esteem tend to expect defeat and suffering, and their lives are

Such anxiety is a response to an unconsciously perceived threat to self-esteem—to the sense of control, efficacy, and worth. The fear seems to be metaphysical, directed at the universe at large, at existence as such. It implies that “to be” is to be in danger—beyond any ordinary, rational sense in which this may be said to be true. There is a

We can better practice self-acceptance when we understand that it is not unwanted feelings that impair healthy functioning but the denial and disowning of those feelings. It is the act of blocking that gives rise to a different set of responses than would occur were we in solid contact with our inner experience.

Without respect for and enjoyment in who I am, however, I have very little to give. I see other people essentially as sources of approval or disapproval, not as people in their own right.

Altruism, as an ethical principle, holds that a human being must make the welfare of others his or her primary moral concern, placing their interests above those of self; it holds that an individual has no right to exist for his or her own sake, that service to others is the moral justification of one’s existence, and that self-sacrifice is one’s

O f all the judgments that we pass in life, none is as important as the one we pass on ourselves, for that judgment touches the very center of our existence.

Joy does violence to my self-concept because pain (my pain) is my lot in life. I must not allow myself to be “set up” by transitory flickers of joy for the devastating pain that inevitably must follow. In other words, happiness makes me feel anxious.