You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. The ego is like an old dog. Jill Bolte Taylor had to have a brain hemorrhage to lose her ego. Something similar happened to Ram Dass. Eckhart Tolle had to be driven close to suicide before the ego lost its grip over him. There is such enormous power in ego. That is why we humans won’t ever change our evil ways. Words, books, seminars, weekend retreats, psychotherapy, years of meditation practice, nothing seems to do the trick. We will simply not change, even though it is possible. It is possible to give up smoking, and drinking; it is possible to change eating and thinking habits, but still, we won’t do it.

It is too difficult to break habits. So, stop trying to change anything, the world, your friends, your husband or yourself. Don’t try to be positive or realistic or optimistic. Do what you like or do what you don’t like. It makes no difference. Believe in whatever pleases you. I have given up the fight now. I have surrendered to an overwhelming enemy.

Some people speak in an affected way. They have an artificial dialect; like cultural snobs, politicians, religious fanatics, cool truck drivers or drug peddlers, just to mention a few varieties. They put on a show to impress others. They don’t speak with their own voice. They pretend that they are someone else. Their inner voices are most likely affected and artificial as well. Probably they have completely forgotten about their own true self.

Well, we have all been there. We are often forced to speak with another voice than our own? We have often to pretend that we are someone else in order to get away with something, stay out of trouble, or simply because we want things to run more smoothly. Sometimes we have to pretend that we are positive and optimistic, sometimes we have to pretend that we mourn. But after some years, if we completely have forgotten about our own true voice and our own true self, then what do we do?

How do we find a way back? Is there really a true voice in the head? Is there really a true self?

Is it not only after some kind of disaster that one begin to question things? Why should one question oneself if ones life is a success story? Maybe the catastrophes are blessings, necessary for us to wake up?