But are you ready for joy, really?
Are you ready to be the person who does not suffer from this compulsion? Who does not obsess about _______?
Who does not act against your own self-interest in such a pernicious way?
Are you ready to let go of not only the behavior of _______, but also the very consciousness of the person who _______?
Are you ready for _______ to no longer even be a big deal in your life?
I am I is the essence of self-acceptance. But it is not passive or selective self-acceptance. It is active, loud, strong, and, if necessary, heroically aggressive. It applies to all aspects of self. It is dictated to only by the highest regard and dedication to individuality, however, that individuality may conform or depart from what are commonly regarded as “cultural norms.” This includes all thoughts, ideas, feelings, desires, decisions, and eventually actions. I includes all that I am. Judgment value, moral equivocation, cultural and conventional values, the ideas of others do not cause me to deaden, reprise, or attempt to cut off parts of myself. I includes all that the culture may see as assets, liabilities, limitations, resources, insensitivities, cruelites, neurotic, good, bad, sensitive, wise, or stupid in me.
— Compassion and Self-Hate, Theodore Issac Rubin
In a state of grace with myself, I do not abandon myself when the going is tough or should others find me antithetical in any way in their frames of reference. Loyalty means care and kindness at all times, and particularly when they are needed to reduce the pain of difficult times. I never, absolutely never, side with anyone who is against my welfare, I aid nobody who detracts from my dignity, who makes me feel less than human either through subhuman onslaughts or superhuman demands. I fight or avoid people whose effect is ultimately destructive to my validity as a person, or who in any way dilute my ability to take myself seriously.
— Compassion and Self-Hate, Theodore Issac Rubin
