Far Both Ways

There is a quote, "It is 40 miles into the forest and it is 40 miles out."  Which means?  If you have lived much of your life badly, you won't change overnight.  It takes some time.  When people decide that they have had enough of bad behavior, find some spiritual path or program of recovery, they sometimes get impatient at how things don't go better all at once.  Why do they keep doing some of the old behavior?  Bad behavior, faults, defects of character that are imbedded in us from years of practice, don't disappear all at once.  You cannot exterminate them like you do an insect.  If you are self-centered and selfish, prone to whining and self-pity, blaming others, you will not stop all at once, but you will begin to catch yourself before you go too far into the behavior or you will begin to replace, slowly, bad stuff with good stuff.  Acceptance and being useful to others will begin to bud in your life.  And remember to ask for help before you become desperate.  It is part of your spiritual way.  You are not God, but rather a feeble person learning to walk a new path.