When you try to bring about behavioral change by an effort of will, you actually do violence to yourself, and the chances are very good that you will not succeed. This is so universally true that you can actually make money from it.
Interpretation
Forcing change through sheer willpower can be detrimental and often ineffective.
This quote emphasizes that trying to change one's behavior solely through willpower can lead to inner conflict and ultimately result in failure. Instead of pushing against oneself, a more gentle and understanding approach to change may yield better outcomes, highlighting the importance of emotional alignment and acceptance in the process of personal transformation.
In practice
In a self-help seminar to discuss personal growth strategies.
I believe that if you don't derive a deep sense of purpose from what you do, if you don't come radiantly alive several times a day, if you don't feel deeply grateful at the tremendous good fortune that has been bestowed on you, then you are wasting your life. And life is too short to waste.
When something happens to you, suffering doesn't begin. Suffering begins at the instant you label a bad thing - as something that is wrong.
When you label so much of what happens to you as 'bad,' it reinforces the feeling that you are a powerless pawn at the mercy of outside forces over which you have no control. And - this is key - labeling something a bad thing almost guarantees that you'll experience it as such.
It becomes more necessary to see the truth as it is if you realise that the only vehicle for change are these people who have lost their personality. The first step therefore is to make the black man come to himself; to pump back life into his empty shell; to infuse him with pride and dignity, to remind him of his complicity in the crime of allowing himself to be misused and therefore letting evil reign supreme in the country of his birth.
The moral imperative to make big changes is inescapable...that what we take for granted may not be here for our children
In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking. Now, Heaven knows, anything goes. The world has gone mad today, and good's bad today, and black's white today, and day's night today.
In that part of the book of my memory before which little can be read, there is a heading, which says: ‘Incipit vita nova: Here begins the new life’.
It happens over and over again—a group of people come together, fired up with passion to create change. They begin with huge inspiration and enthusiasm—and a year later, it’s all foundered in the mire of conflict. We could have changed the world ten times over—if we didn’t have to do it together with other people, those irritating, self-righteous, controlling, fluff-brained, clueless idiots who are our friends and allies.
Each moment is a moment of choice ~ a time to leave the old, the limited, the restrained, and the contracted for the new, the unbound, and the liberating potential that expands before you.
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