I’m not sure I agree with this in reality. Yes I want it to be true but society is larger than the self in many ways and has a lot of power over how a person exists and operates within it. And in America especially, what do we appear to value? We value people with money — look at who our president is right now. Just so it’s clear, I don’t believe this nor want our society to function this way, but our society clearly does. But even I’m not immune to societies impact on these things.

Remember when even Obama referred to Kamala Harris as primarily about how beautiful she was first instead of how accomplished she was in her work? Even Joe Biden did something similar to Obama, about how he was a “clean” black man.

I know who I personally am and what my value is, but it doesn’t mean that I can just ignore society and the people within it and how that affects how I operate within it.