The real wisdom here isn't that change requires effort—anyone knows that. Rather, De Pree is saying there's a fundamental incompatibility between your present self and your future self, as if they occupy different moral or intellectual spaces. You cannot trick your way forward with small adjustments; something about who you are *now* must be genuinely surrendered. Consider someone leaving a high-paying job they hate to pursue meaningful work: they're not improving themselves incrementally, they're accepting that the person who would stay is incompatible with the person who needs to emerge.