7 INSIGHTS
I.
How did Schindler transform?
He wasn’t following a code. He wasn’t trying to be good. He started as a greedy opportunist exploiting a war.
So what changed?
II.
He saw what was real. And he didn’t look away.
He saw the Jews in his factory. He saw where they were headed. He saw what he was a part of.
And he didn’t lie to himself about it.
III.
This is the rarest thing a human being can do.
Not courage. Not sacrifice. Not virtue.
Honesty. Radical, unflinching honesty about what is—and about who you are.
IV.
The Pope saw the same reality. The clergy saw it. The “good people” saw it.
But they lied to themselves.
They rationalized.
They looked away.
They told themselves stories about why it wasn’t their responsibility, why they couldn’t act, why silence was wisdom.
Self-deception is the first sin. Every other sin follows from it.
V.
We all do this.
We see our own selfishness and call it pragmatism. We see our cowardice and call it patience. We see our cruelty and call it honesty. We see our greed and call it ambition.
The lies we tell ourselves are the most dangerous lies of all—because we believe them.
VI.
This is why ideals make us uncomfortable.
They show us the gap between who we are and who we could be. The immature response is to dismiss the ideal—”Nobody is perfect”
The mature response is to stand in the gap. To feel its weight. To stop pretending.
VII.
Morality doesn’t begin with rules.
It begins with seeing yourself clearly—the shadow, the selfishness, the fear, all of it.
Not to punish yourself. Not to wallow in guilt.
But because you can’t transform what you refuse to see.
Schindler didn’t become moral by following a code. He became moral by stopping the lies.
That’s where it starts. That’s the only place it can start.
Radical self-honesty.
3 QUOTES
I.
“The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.”
Gloria Steinem
II.
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
III.
“The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.”
Thales
1 QUESTION
What truth about yourself are you avoiding right now?