The autumn of self-respect.

I once had a committee in my head that tallied my every action. If I said one thing and did another, the committee would boo in exasperation. To earn self-respect, the committee required me to pass the consistency test. They questioned my integrity whenever my intentions changed and my desires shifted. Words like, unreliable, erratic, irresponsible, capricious, unprincipled, would be casually thrown around.

The committee had the virtuous task of keeping me congruent. They nudged me to show up timely for meetings, earn good grades, and achieve other externally recognizable goals. But after many laborious nights of weighing the checks and balances of external successes versus the costly internal wars, I eventually made the difficult decision to disband them.

To make our headspace a friendly place to live, every emotional value that's directed toward the self should never be earned. Self-respect, like self-love, needs no justification. They are inherent rights of every being, whether she is a cow, a rock, or a human.

A friend sent me a photo he took from a hotel's hallway this late summer which says, "Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go." We learn from the falling leaves of autumn and surrender to their continually shifts and shades.

Our intentions, dreams, and desires can change from one day to another, one moment to the next. This is the nature of all lives. To hold someone responsible for a word they said many moons ago and ostracize them for being contradictory is to lose the chance of meeting and celebrating them where they are.

Let us make decisions based on the knowledge that we have now and honor newfound ones as we understand ourselves more deeply down the road. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in Self-Reliance, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." With humor, let us change. We all deserve much kindness.