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.
This is what a crisis does: It makes you question the status quo. That doesn't mean that after a crisis we move into some kind of utopia. But it is an opportunity for political change.
Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict.
We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Iβve also been reminded recently that while as a society we are moving toward greater inclusion and equality for all people, the tide of history only advances when people make themselves fully visible.
We've talked more about civil rights after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than we talked about it before 1964.
President Kennedy's election was such an enlargement. It expanded religious freedom to include the highest office in the land. President Kennedy's administration was such an enlargement. It advanced the day when the bars of intolerance against all minority groups will be lifted, not only for the presidency, but for all aspects of our national life.
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