I cannot and should not try to get self-esteem by performing esteemable acts. The esteemable acts should be performed, because that is the right thing to do, but that is as far as the matter goes.
Self-esteem thus won drains away at the precise moment the esteemable act halts. As soon as I behave badly or indifferently or move to an ordinary task, then that fresh action becomes the measure of my worth.
If my value as a person is dependent on my acts at all, it must depend on all of my acts. It makes no sense to artificially pick some of my acts as establishing my worth and others as not.
If my value as a person is dependent on my acts at all, it must depend on all of my acts. It makes no sense to artificially pick some of my acts as establishing my worth and others as not.
If Susan did a bad thing and defined her sense of personhood and value based on that, we would say she is foolish. It is no less foolish to take a good act, a series of good acts, or a life consisting largely in good acts and say that that defines her sense of personhood and value. If any act defines the personhood and value, all acts must.
Even if one were to be even-handed and say that all acts flow into personhood and value, one would thereby be building an impossible standard to live to, as the only state of affairs that could possibly bring about self-esteem would be a life where all acts were in accordance with God's will. Even then, there is the risk of failure and the memory of past acts that fell short. Dirty water cannot be cleaned. Only completely clean water will do. One dead rat in the well is enough to make the water undrinkable.
It's a common approach in Al-Anon to list assets in Step Four alongside defects, as an antidote to the shame flowing from the observation of the defects. Now, this listing of assets might be a valuable counterbalance to the mistaken perception of oneself as a walking defect, restoring a balanced view of the mixed bag of assets and defects, but it doesn't solve the problem of shame.
If, due to defects and wrongs, one believes oneself to be rotten, even a perfect counterbalance, producing 50% defects and wrongs on one hand and 50% assets and virtuous acts on the other hand, would fail: the result would be a soul that is now only half-gangrenous.
The nature of shame is that it propagates its poison throughout its medium, like the putrefying rat in the well or the odour of a sulphurous egg in a kitchen. Just one is all it takes.
The only solution is this:
I'm a perfect child of God and am loved by God. I cannot sweep away my own 'sin'. Traditions vary on how to deal with the 'sin'. One religion might propose vicarious atonement. Another approach might recast sin as error. The AA approach is to convert all wrong thinking and wrongdoing, through forgiveness and amends, into fuel for helping others. This conversion process transfigures everything, leaving the individual whole.