This passage struck home today, and was echoed by a blog post elsenet.

[labelleizzy]

"The thing is, we spend too much time looking outside ourselves for what we should really be trying to find inside. But we can't seem to trust what we find in ourselves --maybe because that's where we find it. I suppose it's all a part of how we ignore who we really are. We're so quick to cut away pieces of ourselves to suit a particular relationship, a job, a circle of friends, incessantly editing who we are until we fit in. Or we do it to someone else. We try to edit the people around us.

I don't know which is worse...

...Why do we love ourselves so little? Why are we suspect for trying to love ourselves, for being true to who and what we are rather than what someone else thinks we should be? We're so ready to betray ourselves, but we never call it that. We have all these other terms to describe it: Fitting in. Doing the right thing. Getting along. ...

...But how can we expect others to respect or care for us, if we don't respect and care for ourselves? And how come nobody asks, "if you're so ready to betray yourself, why should I believe that you won't betray me as well?" "

-- from "My Life as a Bird" in Moonlight and Vines by Charles de Lint