From Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, Book II, number III.
Do soul, do; abuse and contemn thyself; yet a while and the time for thee to respect thyself will be at an end. Every man's happiness depends from himself, but behold thy life is almost at an end while affording thyself no respect, thou dost make thy happiness to consist in the souls, and conceits, of others.
In other words, you grant the power to external validation, not to the internal, which is most important. Your opinion of yourself, your self-esteem, is more important than the thoughts and opinions of others. I have such a hard time with this. Recently I had a review where someone who barely knew me made some terribly incorrect assumptions about my motivation and ability to do my work, which was very disheartening, and it made me feel very bad about myself. Or, rather, it was the trigger, but I made myself feel bad. I felt useless like I'd wasted 27 years of investment in my workplace for nothing.
But we have power over that and only that. No one has the right to really expect their opinion to make or shape you, and more importantly, you should never give control of your life over to someone else, because no one can truly know you as you know yourself, at least if you've tried to gain some insight into your life. Right?
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