What is the price of your self-esteem?

What's the price of your self-esteem?
It seems that most of my friends echo a theme that I have often heard repeated in so many ways in social settings and in numerous support and help groups.
What echoes in my ear is that everyone seems to feel shame on some level. Why is this? Certainly shame devalues us and our self esteem. Certainly regret is a 1/2 step before shame but why do people invest the effort to complete this trip? As adults we should learn to accept and love who we are and what we have done! Otherwise we only hold ourselves back from change and/or progress in this life. So often the cause of this shame is based in our childhood and is often the echoes of voices that taught us from right and wrong. Well unless you came from my family that should be true, my family, a nuclear family that blew apart long before I was 7. So I guess I was blessed never to have that supervision and to only know shame through the taunts of classmates. But there is no shame for me because my investment in my self worth is to use my energy to develop self-pride and self-respect. Certainly this sounds like a difficult task- and it is- even for one who admits no shame. For one, me, who invested the price of time and effort to support my belief that shame has no place in life, yes regret may have, but shame devalues every bit of self esteem and takes away from the beautiful and unique being I am.
I remember a time when my Grandmother was teaching me to read and write, to fight the ADD and Dyslexia, and having been forced by my father to use my right hand because as he said many times "No son of mine is going to be a lefty freak". I asked her "Grandma, am I a freak?" She responded with the wisest words I have ever heard- "No you are perfect, perfectly imperfect. Just the way God made you!" and with that one statement she invested in my self-esteem and it has paid off everyday of my life. Yes we are all perfectly imperfect. Forget the shame, learn and grow through your regrets and invest in your own self esteem.
Pride creates self worth and shame devalues it!
What do you invest in your self-worth? Your self-esteem?
Because this is wealth or debt you place upon yourself.