9781626569768

struggling with his sense of self (even if the rest of the world is struggling
with its sense of who he is). Even if we were to surmise that Trump and
others like him are acting from an exaggerated lack of self-esteem or
confidence, I think we can agree not much of their attitudes or actions feel
like love.
You may be asking, “Okay, well if this book won’t help me with my
self-esteem or self-confidence, will it at least teach me self-acceptance?”
My short answer is, if I do my job correctly, no! Not because selfacceptance
isn’t useful but because I believe there is a port far beyond the
isle of self-acceptance and I want us to go there. Think back to all the times
you “accepted” something and found it completely uninspiring. When I was
a kid, my mother would make my brother and me frozen pot pies for dinner.
It was the meal for the days she did not feel like cooking. I enjoyed the
flaky pastry crust. The chunks of mechanically pressed chicken in a Band-
Aid-colored beige gravy were tolerable. But there was nothing less
appetizing than the abhorrent vegetable medley of peas, green beans, and
carrots portioned throughout each bite like miserable stars in an endless
galaxy. Yes, I ate those hateful mixed vegetables. Hunger will make you
accept things. I accepted that my options were limited: pick out a million
tiny peas or get a job at the ripe age of ten and figure out how to feed
myself. Why am I talking about pot pies? Because self-acceptance is the
mixed-veggie pot pie of radical self-love. It will keep you alive when the
options are sparse, but what if there is a life beyond frozen pot pies?
Too often, self-acceptance is used as a synonym for acquiescence. We
accept the things we cannot change. We accept death because we have no
say over its arbitrary and indifferent arrival at our door. We have personal
histories of bland acceptance. We have accepted lackluster jobs because we
were broke. We have accepted lousy partners because their lousy presence
was better than the hollow aloneness of their absence. We practice selfacceptance
when we have grown tired of self-hatred but can’t conceive of
anything beyond a paltry tolerance of ourselves. What a thin coat to wear
on this weather-tossed road. Famed activist and professor Angela Davis
said, “I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing
the things I cannot accept.” 1 We can change the circumstances that have had
us settle for self-acceptance. I assure you there is a richer, thicker, cozier
blanket to carry through the world. There is a realm infinitely more mindblowing.
It’s called radical self-love.