I08 · Identity and Personal Change
Struggle to change and relapse
Wanting to transform one's habits or character while repeatedly being pulled back by inertia.
Cues
Showing 20 of 27 cues
“Be not disgusted, nor discouraged, nor dissatisfied, if thou dost not succeed in doing everything according to right principles; but when thou hast failed, return back again.”
“But, on the whole, tho’ I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it ...”
“We cannot change anything unless we accept it.”
“If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.”
“Every habit and capability is confirmed and grows in its corresponding actions, walking by walking, and running by running ... therefore, if you want to do something make a habit of it, if you don’t want to do that, don’t, but make a habit of something else instead. The same principle is at work in our state of mind. When you get angry, you’ve not only experienced that evil, but you’ve also reinforced a bad habit, adding fuel to the fire.”
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
“Nothing important comes into being overnight; even grapes or figs need time to ripen. If you say that you want a fig now, I will tell you to be patient. First, you must allow the tree to flower, then put forth fruit; then you have to wait until the fruit is ripe. So if the fruit of a fig tree is not brought to maturity instantly or in an hour, how do you expect the human mind to come to fruition, so quickly and easily?”
“I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct.”
“The snake that cannot shed its skin perishes. So do the spirits who are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be a spirit.”
“To will to be himself is man’s true vocation ... blockages in self-awareness [occur] because the individual [is] unable to move through accumulations of anxiety at various points in his growth. Kierkegaard makes it clear that selfhood depends upon the individual’s capacity to confront anxiety and move ahead despite it.”
“When someone fervently wants for a very long time to seem something, it will eventually be difficult for that person to be anything else. The profession of almost everyone, even of the artist, begins with hypocrisy, with an imitating from outside and a mimicking of what works effectively.”
“Creating, actualizing one’s possibilities, always involves destructive as well as constructive aspects. It always involves destroying the status quo, destroying old patterns within oneself, progressively destroying what one has clung to from childhood on, and creating new and original forms and ways of living ...”
“Suppose that I become dissatisfied with my habitual self, or feel that there are areas of experience or self-understanding which I cannot reach. One way of exploring these is to remove myself from present surroundings and see what emerges. This is not without its dangers. Any form of new organization or integration within the mind has to be preceded by some degree of disorganization.”
“Thus instead of supposing that a work of art must be something that all can behold - a poem, a painting, a book, a great building - consider making of your own life a work of art. You have yourself to begin with, and a time of uncertain duration to work on it. You do not have to be what you are, and even though you may be quite content with who and what you are, it will not be hard for you to think of something much greater that you might become.”
“How can a man come to know himself? Never by thinking, but by doing. Try to do your duty and you will know at once what you are worth.”
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
“If a person does not become what he understands, then he does not understand it either.”
“Experience ... shows beyond any doubt that patients can develop an amazing faculty of keen self-observation if they are bent on understanding their own problems.”
“Self-knowledge is not an aim in itself, but a means of liberating the forces of spontaneous growth. In this sense, to work at ourselves becomes not only the prime moral obligation, but at the same time, in a very real sense, the prime moral privilege. To the extent that we take our growth seriously, it will be because of our own desire to do so.”
“Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”