| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: Men are not in the habit of dwelling upon the dark side of their own lives:
they do not easily see themselves as others see them. They are very kind
and very blind to their own faults; the rhetoric of self-love is always
pleading with them on their own behalf. Adopting a similar figure of
speech, Socrates would have them use rhetoric, not in defence but in
accusation of themselves. As they are guided by feeling rather than by
reason, to their feelings the appeal must be made. They must speak to
themselves; they must argue with themselves; they must paint in eloquent
words the character of their own evil deeds. To any suffering which they
have deserved, they must persuade themselves to submit. Under the figure
there lurks a real thought, which, expressed in another form, admits of an
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Treasure Island |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: husband's inexplicable caprice.
In 1820 the Marquise roused herself from her lethargy; she went to
Court, appeared at parties, and entertained in her own house. From
1821 to 1827 she lived in great style, and made herself remarked for
her taste and her dress; she had a day, an hour, for receiving visits,
and ere long she had seated herself on the throne, occupied before her
by Madame la Vicomtesse de Beauseant, the Duchesse de Langeais, and
Madame Firmiani--who on her marriage with M. de Camps had resigned the
sceptre in favor of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, from whom Madame
d'Espard snatched it. The world knew nothing beyond this of the
private live of the Marquise d'Espard. She seemed likely to shine for
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