“Don’t take yourself so seriously.” Passionate people encounter this criticism from their peers often enough, and it is a generally accepted virtue to make light of personal pride or ambition.

This judgment invariably follows moments of boldness, openness, or even righteous anger. In other words, the moments in which you’re criticized for taking yourself too seriously are the ones in which you’ve expressed the best parts of yourself. Yet you’re are told that you are not significant enough to deserve the significance of those moments, and you tend to agree.

Why do you so uncritically accept your own seriousness as a vice? There are few more harmful judgments. When you’ve surrendered your own right to significance, you’ll always find that you’re never old enough, experienced enough, or respected enough for it to be given back. Those who find seriousness objectionable in self-evaluation will not recognize significance when they evaluate others. It is neither worthwhile nor effective to wait to “be taken seriously” by the people who would advise you to take yourself as a punchline.

On the other hand, taking yourself seriously is a choice, and it is a primary one. If you’re going to respect any of your own decisions and trust any of your evaluations in life, you have to consider yourself worthy to make those decisions and evaluations. Your idea of our own significance plays itself out in the ways you build your character and achieve your goals. How would that character and those goals be different if you chose to honor rather than mock yourself?

There are plenty of things in life not worth taking seriously, such as small mistakes, excessive praise, or bad advice (see: “Don’t take yourself so seriously”). Life is not one of these. Take yourself seriously. You may discover that there is a lightness to living with the weight of significance.

Read: Aren’t You a Little Young? An Apology for Ambition

Read You’re Already Old Enough

Watch Neil deGrasse Tyson: Be Yourself (Video 2:38)

Watch Obvious to You. Amazing to Others.

Read How To Be a Disruptive Hero

• Make a list of three times when you made a positive difference in someone’s life.
• Make a list of three things that make you different from most people.

1. What is the value of being yourself?
2. What advice would you give to someone who doesn’t like themselves?
3. What would you say to someone who thought they were too young to make a positive difference in the world?
4. What does it mean to be a disruptive hero?
5. Is it possible to be a disruptive hero outside the world of business?
6. Do you know anyone who you’d consider to be a disruptive hero?
7. How is it possible for something to be unimpressive to you but impressive to others?
8. Can you think of any examples where someone was impressed by something you did even though you thought it was unimpressive?