From childhood, Vladimir Putin dreamed of joining the KGB, the Soviet Union’s secret police force. He was eager to follow in his father’s footsteps — so eager, in fact, that he called up the local Leningrad KGB office and asked to join before he’d even graduated school.
Each of us has been ashamed at some point. We know that our sense of shame has to do with what others think of us and how we relate that to ourselves. But there is actually much more to it than that. Shame is related to a basic human need: relationships, love, and belonging.