Willing to change” — you said it all there. That’s the hardest thing in the world. What will cause the type of change that will mean you never go back? Like quitting smoking cold turkey, for instance.

Instead of ceasing certain destructive behaviors outright and permanently, I’ve created elaborate systems of temporary justification amidst towering piles of excuses and word trickery known only to myself. Giving in soothes the loneliness and depression but later on, or the next day, everything’s off kilter again except for the endless new resolutions to change. For days or even weeks (in the best of times) I’m a new person...until, ironically, I’m in such a good mood that I go ahead and indulge the destructive behaviors in a seemingly never-ending cycle. But in all the setbacks and suffering of low self-esteem come small, progressive steps forward on the spiritual path you know is there. I certainly see it in you. In my experience, and in so much of what I have read, evolution of the soul is carried on the back of suffering with the hope of eventual redemption. There is a reason wisdom is attached to sufferinvg, and only you will no what that reason is.