You are not just the size of your bank account, the neighborhood you live in, or the type of work you do. You are, just like everyone else, an almost inconceivably complicated mix of abilities and limitations.
A new kind of New Year's resolution is becoming increasingly popular. Instead of dwelling on something they think is wrong with them and resolving to improve, a lot of people are taking a
different approach. They are resolving to accept themselves. To acknowledge that, faults and all, they are complete people, good people.
Kathleen, a member of a group that spreads the acceptance philosophy, explains that she used to feel like she was in a trap she could not get out of. She would try to correct herself and change herself, and the failure to change was actually worse than the original problem itself. She felt like a "maniac" because of the pressures to change and the weight of failure.
Now Kathleen counsels accepting yourself, which does not mean ignoring your faults or never trying to improve. What it does mean is "believing in your own value first, last, and always."
In a study of adult self-esteem, researchers found that people who are happy with themselves take defeat and explain it away, treating it as an isolated incident that indicates nothing about their ability. People who are unhappy take defeat and enlarge it, making it stand for who they are and using it to predict the outcome of future life events.
Brown and Dutton 1995
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