“When I headed off to college, my mother gave me a piece of folded-up paper with a message she thought I would need. She wrote it longhand on a page torn from one of the little notebooks she kept by the phone.
It said: No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
It’s a quote widely attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, and it was a wonderful gift for a young woman setting off into the world.
I wish I’d kept that tiny piece of paper. For a time it was in my wallet, and then, after it got frayed and kind of dingy, I put it inside a sparkly bobby pin and kept it in a dresser drawer with jewelry and keepsakes. After several years and several moves, I lost track of it—but I’ve always tried to cling tightly to the idea that we have the power to reject any attempt to make us feel small or subordinate.”