Joan Didion had a talent for illuminating the internal moments that shape a person’s life. In a 1961 essay published in “Vogue” and later reprinted as “On Self-Respect” in Didion’s book “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” Didion argues that self-respect isn’t about meeting others’ expectations but rather reclaiming a sense of our own desires and direction. 

Without this grounding, we might look for identity in all the wrong places, only to discover there’s “no one at home,” as Didion put it. In modern parlance, we may call this idea “setting boundaries” — learning what to tolerate, and what we cannot compromise.