Self-respect: Its Source, Its Power

people with self-respect have the courage of their mistakes. They know the price of things. If they choose to commit adultery, they do not then go running, in an access of bad conscience, to receive absolution from the wronged parties; nor do they complain unduly of the unfairness, the undeserved embarrassment, of being named corespondent. If they

Character,” Joan Didion would write in one of her best essays, “the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life—is the source from which self-respect springs.”

To experience that I am competent to live means that I have confidence in the functioning of my mind. To experience that I am worthy of living means that I have an affirmative attitude toward my right to live and to be happy.

As one of those women, Lois Carrier, told me, “Until a woman learns to value herself, she’s not going to be valued by an employer (or client).”