This is reminding me of Branden's idea of "primitive self-affirmation" which is prior to self-esteem. Unfortunately, I haven't seen anything where he pursues the idea further.

It also reminds me of something I read when I was fairly young-- it was advice to parents who have a kid with a fatal disease-- to just enjoy the present with the kid. At the time, this seemed like reasonable advice, except that I had no idea of what it would mean in practice.

It may not be a coincidence that I have bad problems with akrasia.