When the day one is living is taken as the totality of one’s life, when one does not leave for tomorrow what one must do this very day, then indeed one gets to know what the work on oneself really means.
When one identifies himself with the different events of life, he makes many mistakes. If one identifies himself with a drink that a drunken friend offers to him, he ends up drunk. If one identifies himself with a person of the opposite sex, then he ends up fornicating. If one identifies himself with an insulter’s words, then one ends up insulting them back.
There are no Shortcuts
With patience thou shalt possess thy souls. Jesus
Without struggle, no progress and no result. Every breaking of habit produces a change in the machine. G. I. Gurdjieff