From the introduction to
Tear Open Your Cocoon
Most of us today live in cocoons. It is dark and dusty inside, and we think we can't get out. We tell ourselves stories about the cocoon, but these stories are lies. They only feel like the truth because they've been repeated so often. We could tear open the cocoon if we wanted to. We could push out and see the light of the world. We could learn to fly. The cocoon is known by the name of personality.
Most people live trapped inside their personalities for their entire lives, never knowing that they can leave. They are victims of their own invented "selves." They wake up each morning to a world that is gray and dusty. There is almost no light. Pushing against the inner wall of the cocoon seems too hard. Why bother? And how can we know for sure if there is anything on the other side? But there are people who learn to push through. They learn to think all over again.
People who take up thinking again learn to fly. They learn to enjoy taking full possession of their own freedom. In effect, they reinvent who they are. And, in the process, they become owners of the human spirit.
Living as Owners or Victims
As you look back on your life so far, you will see that you have two basic ways of being. At any given time, you were either one way, or you were the other; you were either an owner of the human spirit, or you were a victim of circumstances. One way (owner) reinvents you as you go. It reinvents you outward, in an ever-expanding circle of capability, skills, and personal power. The other way (victim) shrinks you down. Just as your muscles shrink when they are not moving, so do you.
One way to get a visual picture of an owner of the human spirit is to watch an early video clip of Elvis Presley singing "Heartbreak Hotel." You will see the joy, the power, and the possession. Owners give all of themselves to what they're doing. They pour all their energy into the current moment.
Dave Marsh, in his famous musical biography Elvis, writes about the moment Elvis Presley burst upon the American scene. In his first appearance on the Dorsey Brothers' TV show, the young singer rocked the world. Marsh described Elvis' startling rendition of "Heartbreak Hotel" and concluded, "He owned the song and he owned the crowd."
When we give ourselves fully to something, we own it. In a sense, we wrap our spirit around it completely. It's an advanced form of full creative responsibility, just as Harry S. Truman took ownership of the presidency the minute he said, "The buck stops here!"
In the movie Ransom, the character played by Mel Gibson makes a dramatic and surprising shift from victim to owner. After his son is kidnapped by vicious criminals, he is talked into "going along" with their demands. He agrees to be passive and play the good victim for the whole first half of the movie. Finally, he snaps and refuses to go along. In the movie's defining moment, he becomes an owner: "If they took my son because they thought I would respond by giving them all this money, then I am the problem." The minute he owned the problem, he was free to become the solution. He switched from victim to owner.
Down at the end of Lonely Street
Studies of human performance over the years have proven that there are only two kinds of people in any given situation: victims and owners. A victim is someone who sees power as something beyond one's control. Victims have a habitually lonely and pessimistic way of viewing and describing the world and its people. And although self-victimization can often last a lifetime, it is only a habit.
When it's understood, it can be quickly replaced. This book is about what to replace it with. Victims do not get their habit from heredity. They think themselves into it. And what is tragic is that their thinking is based on a fundamental misunderstanding, a misunderstanding that is as fundamental as thinking that the world is flat: Victims think all power is outside of them. They think power is in other people and in circumstance.
Victims then continue to victimize themselves throughout their lives by thinking and speaking in deeply pessimistic terms about everything they are challenged by. They are easily discouraged. They use phrases such as "the human predicament" and "the tragedy of human life." Their stories take on the weary tones of people who are living in defeat. They have little energy for anything. And their passive tendency to fall into depression reminds us of André Gide's observation that "sadness is almost always a form of fatigue."
Owners, on the other hand, take full responsibility for their energy. They continuously tap into the power of the human spirit. They use that spirit as a fire to invent and then reinvent who they are. They don't look for outside sources to supply their motivation. They're not waiting for deliverance. They don't wish they were somewhere else. They agree with Nathaniel Branden that "this earth is the distant star we must find a way to reach."
To an owner, children are always worth observing because children love and enjoy the planet they are on. They invent themselves continuously. We can hear their spirit in the air. We have only to open the window a little bit to hear the shouts of joy at the schoolyard down the road. In a grownup place of business, the shouts of joy are nowhere to be heard. Where did they go? What happened? For some of us, the spirit has gone into hiding completely, waiting only for a dramatic outside adventure (such as a world war) to fire it up once again. But we don't have to wait for a war.
We can feel the spirit again if we are willing to breathe life into it. It is an eternal flame. We can make it burn brighter if we are willing to know how. It's all a matter of how we see ourselves and others. We can give the spirit the oxygen it feeds on by finding the words to think, the words to say, and even the words to sing. Let's begin with these: "This little light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine."
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