Dale Easley's Favorite Quotations
| How to Improve Your Self-Esteem |
| Branden, Nathaniel |
| The lies most devastating to our self-esteem are not so much the lies
we {\em tell} as the lies we {\em live.} We live a lie when we misrepresent the reality of our experience or the truth of our being. Thus I am living a lie when I pretend a love I do not feel; when I pretend an indifference I do not feel; when I present myself as more than I am; when I present myself as less than I am; when I pretend to be helpless and the truth is I am manipulative; when I deny and conceal excitement about life; when I affect a blindness that denies my awareness; when I affect a knowledgeability I do not possess; when I laugh when I need to cry; when I spend unnecessary stretches of time with people I dislike; when I present myself as the embodiment of values I do not feel or hold; when I am kind to everyone except the persons I profess to love; when I fake beliefs to win acceptance; when I fake modesty; when I fake arrogance; when I allow my silence to imply agreement with convictions I do not share; when I profess to admire one kind of person while consistently sleeping with another. Good self-esteem demands congruence--- which means that the self within and the self manifested in the world be in accord. |