The Way of Integrity: Finding the path to your true self

The only change to make at this point on your way of integrity is to admit—just to yourself—that some of your actions are designed to impress or fit in with other people.

You’ll see that psychological suffering always comes from internal splits between what your encultured mind believes and what feels deeply true to you.

Mind you, hustling doesn’t mean you’re bad. It means you’re well socialized, cooperating beautifully with culture. But it also means you’re split from your true nature.

if you spend your life pursuing culturally defined goals (climbing Mount Delectable), you may manage to get what you want, but you probably won’t get what you yearn for.

from my favorite book, the Tao te Ching,

I certainly didn’t set out to be some kind of culture-busting maverick. Quite the opposite. I was born with the approval-seeking personality of an orphaned lapdog. Whenever my nature and my culture disagreed, I’d sell out my nature, and hard. It worked! I got all kinds of approval! On the other hand, I could barely tolerate things like, you know, b

The extent to which people will defy nature to serve culture can be truly horrifying.

Mount Delectable is built on the uniquely human characteristic of assigning “achievement” value to random things. It’s all about culture, not nature.

“So I won an Olympic gold,” one client told me. “And as I climbed down from the podium, the only thought I could think was, ‘What the hell do I do now?’