The side of what we actually are, and the side of what we pretend and imagine we are, are two contradictory sides. These two contradictory sides, however, exist in everyone without exception. The action of the Work, once it is beginning to be wished for, makes us become gradually aware of this contradiction—over many years.

You no longer take your being for granted but have become conscious of so many things in your being which were in darkness to you before and which you blamed others for, that you no longer judge from one harsh intractable angle nor are you continually putting people, even those you love, in prison. Everything broadens and becomes much wider, clearer, and so less and less violent in you.

The Work says that you have no real permanent will because you have no real permanent 'I'. But it says that you have a small degree of will, comparable with the degree of freedom of movement a violin has in its case. But it will all depend in what direction you use the small will that youy naturally have.

The Work explains to us that we must have an AIM. It says that without an AIM we cannot do the Work. We can listen to it, attend meetings, sit looking at the diagrams on the board, but this will not be the same as doing the Work. And unless we do the Work we will never understand what it is all about.

Try, therefore, to observe your 'I's. Try to see that it is 'I's thinking and feeling that are inducing these recurring moods and thoughts from which you suffer. The Work will look after your good 'I's. But, as regards your bad 'I's, the way of release is in stripping and skinning them, in tearing from them the precious feeling of I that you have been so foolishly squandering, allowing them to steal it from you all this time, and without which they would be formless.