Shame and the illusion of free will

"Shame does serve a psychological function. I mean, you wouldn't want to be a primate without a capacity for shame. That doesn't work well. We call those people psychopaths. But, the question is how much shame is it useful and pragmatic to feel in your life. If shame is an issue for you, realizing that you didn't make yourself and that you're not deeply responsible, on some level, for who you were yesterday, all you can do is go forward into the mystery of who you may yet become. You can't see the limits of who you might yet become. You really don't know how much you can change in the future. That frees you from continually punishing yourself for who you were yesterday."

-Sam Harris