How do I accept myself without excusing my flaws?

Acceptance. Somebody said acceptance is the key to all of my problems today, and in your younger years it's acceptance of self. This does not mean you accept your bad behavior, your character flaws, your faults, your sin. What I've noticed, especially in young men, myself included in my 20s, is that we often want to be someone different. The quiet and reserved one wishes he were loud and boisterous.

The loud one wishes he could be silent. The business type wishes he were an artist. But personality is hardwired into you. As a dad of five sons, I can tell you that so much of personality is developed in the first year or two. Look at photographs of your kids at two or three years old, and six, seven, eight years later, it's the same personality. Your personality is not a defect.

It is gifted to you by God. It doesn't mean it isn't flawed; that's why we need character. I think it was St Paisios who said something like, there's no cure for personality. My whole life people told me, you're too intense. For me, that's just who I am, a hardwiring within me. The irony is that I read the lives of the saints, and all the saints are too intense.

They harnessed all that intensity for good. The intensity, the drive, the competition, the desire to get after life and succeed: that wasn't the issue. The issue was that it was so often directed toward negative things. All of your strengths are also your weaknesses; that's how a human being works. The laid back, go with the flow person will have corresponding weaknesses: not on time, not good with time management, not tracking their spending.

So understand: my personality has strengths and weaknesses, it's given to me by God, and I've got to find a way to use it for God's glory and cultivate my character, because I am who I am. That acceptance is a superpower. In a world where everybody wants to be somebody different, if you can truly be at peace with who you are, as St Isaac the Syrian said, make peace with yourself and heaven and earth will make peace with you.

When you accept who you are, with all your strengths, weaknesses, foibles, insecurities, everything good and bad and in between, you bring a certain peace and harmony to life, because you're not trying to be anybody else. You're just trying to be yourself.