BREAKING FREE FROM THE PAST / 83
this area, and since you will always get older, you are finished growing and experiencing anything new. The “I’m” Circle The rewards for hanging onto your past by trotting out your I’ms can be neatly summed up in the one word: avoidance. Whenever you want to dodge a certain kind of activity or to gloss over a personality defect, you can always justify yourself with an I’m. In fact, after you use these labels enough, you begin to believe them yourself, and at that present moment you are a finished product destined to remain as you are for the rest of your days. Labels enable you to avoid the hard work and the risk of trying to change. They perpetuate the behavior which has given rise to them. Thus, if a young man goes to a party with the belief that he is shy, he will behave as if he is shy and his behavior will further support his self-image. It’s a vicious circle.
There you have it. Rather than intervening between point 3 and 4 on the circle, he simply exonerates his behavior with an I’m, and the attendant risk-taking that is necessary to get out of his trap is adroitly avoided. There may be many reasons for the