I The Desire for Change-2

2

There is in us a tendency to locate the shaping forces of ourexistence outside ourselves. Success and failure are unavoidably related in ourminds with the state of things around us. Hence it is that people with a senseof fulfillment think it a good world and would like to conserve it as it is,while the frustrated favor radical change. The tendency to look for all causesoutside ourselves persists even when it is clear that our state of being is theproduct of personal qualities such as ability, character, appearance, healthand so on. “If anything ail a man,” says Thoreau, “so that he does not performhis functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even … he forthwith sets aboutreforming—the world.”3

It is understandable that those who fail should incline toblame the world for their failure. The remarkable thing is that the successful,too, however much they pride themselves on their foresight, fortitude, thriftand other “sterling qualities,” are at bottom convinced that their success isthe result of a fortuitous combination of circumstances. The self-confidence ofeven the consistently successful is never absolute. They are never sure thatthey know all the ingredients which go into the making of their success. Theoutside world seems to them a precariously balanced mechanism, and so long asit ticks in their favor they are afraid to tinker with it. Thus the resistanceto change and the ardent desire for it spring from the same conviction, and theone can be as vehement as the other.