Milton here isn't simply saying that attitude matters—he's suggesting something far stranger: that external reality becomes almost irrelevant once the mind takes hold of it. A person confined to a hospital bed isn't merely *choosing* to think positively; they're actually inhabiting a different world than the visitor in the next room, because consciousness itself is the geography they live in. What makes this radical is that Milton absolves us of the comfort of blaming our circumstances while simultaneously handing us a terrifying freedom—we cannot hide from ourselves by pointing outward. The quote matters because it removes the escape hatch we so desperately want, forcing us to recognize that our suffering or flourishing has less to do with what happens to us than with the ruthless honesty we bring to our own inner life.