Thine own self

There are two ways I can go: I can please myself or I can please other people. The most difficult path is the first one. This is “the narrow way” Jesus spoke about.

Do what you want

The man who does what he wants needs no help doing it. Are his resources meagre and his tools rudimentary? Doesn’t matter. Being unconcerned with results, he has no anxiety, curries no favour.

Our purpose

We have the same mission—to please ourselves. Perversely, right from the beginning, we are trained to please others: Mum and Dad, teachers and coaches, priests and politicians. People-pleasers have a slave mind. This is little understood.

Slave mind

A slave mind seeks to please and placate other minds. It is conformed, domesticated and adulterated, sensitized to reward and punishment. It is “going down into Egypt” and eking out a half-life in the shadow of someone else’s granaries.

“Unless you become again as little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Little children have free minds. Look at them! They know what they want and they do it.