Suppose you are standing on a plank and trying to lift it and struggling as hard as you can to do so. Will you succeed? No, because you yourself are trying to lift yourself and this is impossible. This massive stumbling-block lies across everyone"s path and long, very long overcoming of it is the task of Work on Oneself.

I have watched people in the work, often for many years, who still take everything that takes place in them as “I” and say "I" to every mood, every thought, every impulse, every feeling, every sensation, every criticism, every feeling of anger, every negative state, every objection, every dislike, every hate, every dejection, every depression, every whim, every excitement, every doubt, every fear.

Whereas the case really is that everything in us, practically speaking, is "It"—that is, a machine going by itself. Instead of saying “I think,” we should realize it would be far nearer the truth if we said “It thinks.” And instead of saying "I feel" it would be nearer the mark to say, “It feels.”

Maurice Nicoll, “The Idea of Transformation in the Work” in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 1, p. 61-2)