Breathing Underwater

by Richard Rohr

come your way that you cannot manage on your own. Self-made people, and all heroic spiritualities, will try to manufacture an even stronger self by willpower and determination—to put them back in charge and seeming control. Usually most people admire this, not realizing the unbending, sometimes proud, and eventually rigid personality that will be the long-term result. They will then need to continue in this pattern of self-created successes and defenses. This pushy response does not normally create loving people, but just people in control and in ever-deeper need of control. Eventually, the game is unsustainable, unless you make others, even your whole family, pay the price for your own aggression and self-assertion —which is the common pattern.