Self acceptance and self esteem - not an excuse to stop growing

I’ve been doing a lot of exploration into new activities as I approach my retirement. For certain I do not want to sit and rest on my laurels. I want to keep growing and keeping my brain and mind fresh and connect with others who both share similar and different interests. This is sometimes scary because it involves a certain risk. (What if people don’t like me?). It also means navigating between a the Scylla of self acceptance of who I am on the one hand, and the Charybdis of stagnation on the other. We hear so much about self-acceptance and the peace that comes with acceptance of oneself as a person. What is self-acceptance? Does it mean accepting your weaknesses or negative habits and doing nothing about them? Does this mean accepting your behavior, attitude and life style, and doing nothing to change and improve? This can be an easy way to give in to laziness, and to having good excuses for leaving everything as it is.
This kind of self-acceptance might make one feel a little better and alleviate feelings of inadequacy or anxieties about trying and learning new things, but it does not contribute to real progress and improvement. It is a recipe for stagnation.
The term self-acceptance seems not to be well explained and well understood. Accepting yourself as you are is only the first step. It helps you realize your good and not so good qualities, and can alleviate lack of self esteem, lack of satisfaction with life and the sense of unhappiness or the sense that things could have turned out differently “if only.” Reference, for example, Erik Erikson’s concepts of generativity v stagnation and integrity v despair.
Self-acceptance does not mean that you accept what you are and do nothing to change and improve. It does not mean accepting your fate and life as it is and it does not mean that others have to accept your behavior, no matter how annoying, offensive, rude or hurtful. For example, I overheard a colleague bemoaning a situation involving the students in his class who were beating a path to the dean’s office with complaints of his tardiness and curt, unhelpful responses to their oral and online communications. While I will be the first to admit that there are some really obnoxious students out there, this guy’s explanation that he “just can’t deal with all of these emails and online teaching and the dean shouldn’t assign these courses to me” and “That’s just the way I am. I am honest and will always be honest” seemed very much like excuses to me. There are ways to give students honest feedback without being offensive. I had to tell as student the other day that what he said to me was disrespectful, but I focused on the communication itself, not saying that HE was disrespectful – although he was and continued to be until he dropped my course. I wanted to say to my colleague: “So you are excusing your bad habits and the world should accept you for the jerk that you are? How self-absorbed of you.”
I believe that becoming aware and acknowledging your behavior, habits and your personality, and not being afraid to look at yourself as you are, is the first step to self-acceptance. Sometimes that means looking at yourself through the eyes of others and putting their feedback into the equation. Why? Not because your self-esteem depends on others, but because we humans receive information – of all kinds – from others. We are not islands unto ourselves. It is important to understand how a many different people see us and how they see different situations and compare their views to yours. It is the skill of reality testing and the basis of reality. Indeed the reason that ASD folks are so impaired socially is that they either are unable to process how others respond to them or situate themselves within a reciprocal relationship.
So, self acceptance is a good thing, because when you accept yourself as you are, you put yourself in a better position to begin improving yourself, opening yourself up to possibilities, and keeping life interesting.
Improvement requires that you understand and acknowledge your character and habits, stop comparing yourself and your achievements to others, and acknowledging your skills or the lack of them. This will bring some sort of inner peace, lightness and happiness, like getting rid if a burden. Acknowledging good and bad habits and traits of character can alleviate feelings of dissatisfaction, anger, resentment or unhappiness, but it is not an excuse for staying as you are, it is only the first step.