If you attend to your conscience, you will begin to determine that some of the things you are doing are wrong. More precisely: if you are alerted to the possibility of your own wrongdoing by your conscience, and you then begin to engage in a true dialogue with that same agent, you will begin to develop a clear picture of what is wrong–and, by implication–what is right. […] You act and betray yourself, and you feel bad about that. You do not know exactly why. You try to avoid thinking about it, because it is less painful and easier in the short term not to think about it. You try with all your might to ignore it, but all that does is increase your sense of betrayal and further divide you against yourself.
So, you reconsider, perhaps, and you confront your discomfort. You note your disunity and the chaos that comes with it. You ask yourself–you pray to discover–what you did wrong. And the answer arrives. And it is not what you want. And part of you must therefore die, so that you can change.”