The Story of My Experiments with Truth

Belangrijkste inzichten

• Keeping small vows through hard moments builds the willpower for large ones
• Confessing a wrong plainly and quickly heals it and changes the other person
• Satyagraha works by accepting suffering without retaliation until injustice is exposed
• Simplicity is freedom: every comfort you drop is one less claim on you
• Treat your own life as a laboratory for testing what is true

In deze bit

1. A life lived as an experiment

   Most autobiographies polish the hero. Gandhi's does the opposite.

2. Small vows build a large character

   Before Gandhi left for London, his mother made him promise to avoid meat, wine and women. He kept the vow through loneliness, mockery and hunger, and he later felt that keeping it taught him more than any lecture.

3. Confession is a source of strength

   As a teenager Gandhi took a bit of gold from his brother's armlet to clear a debt. He could not bear the guilt, so he wrote a confession and handed it to his sick father, expecting anger.

4. Satyagraha is born in South Africa

   A young lawyer with a first-class ticket is thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg because of his skin. Gandhi spends a freezing night in the waiting room deciding whether to go home or stay and fight.

5. Simplicity as a way of life

   Gandhi kept stripping his life down. He cut his own hair, washed his own clothes, cleaned latrines and moved his family into shared communities like Phoenix Settlement and Tolstoy Farm, where everyone worked with their hands.

6. Put it to work

   Make one small vow this week that you would normally break, such as no phone at dinner, and keep it for 7 days no matter what. Notice how much easier the second week feels.