"But there’s a deeper problem: **the concept of the fresh start suggests a very bizarre notion of the self. It implies that you can ‘stand back’ objectively from your personality characteristics, nominate some of them for change, then set to work. But, obviously, we are those characteristics; they define us**. The self doing the work is the self being acted upon. This needn’t mean change is impossible – clearly, it isn’t – but it makes things vastly more complicated. It means we’re inescapably implicated in what we’re trying to leave behind, and it makes the idea of a truly fresh start highly suspect. **Start Where You Are is the (very sensible) title of three different books on happiness, but the real point isn’t that you ought to start where you are. It’s that you have no option: you are where you are**." --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[fresh-startism]], [[happiness]], [[acceptance]], [[self-help-books]] **Source** -- [[20241114100017 - B - Help!]]