This a short auto-biographiucal book about the will to change from the perspective of a psychologists. In particular the author himself struggles with the contradiction between the deterministic circumstances that shape our being, and our ability to change ourselves via free-will. Utimately the author argues that both are vaild views of reality.
I was intrigued by the hardship his dying father put upon him as his way to ensure his sons properity --at least from his perspective. He forced his son to mow a field with hand shears for an entire summer, all day, every day. When he had finally finsihed, his father told him,
"At any rate, we learned how to work, and there's nothing more important for a boy to learn. It's something you haven't learned yet, son." "You will, though, If you ever amount to anything you'll learn. You're learning now. I wish you could understand, though, that I wouldn't be trying to teach you so fast if I knew I would live long enough to teach you more slowly." "Remember son, whenever it seems like I'm being hard you...it's because I love you. (pg. 67-68)
The author feels otherwise however, because he also sees these events as what led to his neurosis. I concur with this, but I do think the author judges his father too harshly for it. The man was dying, and did what he felt best for his son, right or wrong.
His father died not long there after.
The author emphizes the importance of examining one's significant failures in life, in order to effecitvely change.
One exceptional passage in the later analysis, the sequence of change:
"suffering, insight, will, action, change" (pg. 102)
I think that is a good sequence to remember.