Why is authenticity so difficult for some people? || Acharya Prashant, on 'The Fountainhead' (2019)

Question: Acharya Ji, Pranaam! While reading the first chapter of the Fountainhead, I found that the character Peter Keating shows us our reality. But in front of Howard Roark Peter can’t hide his falsities, though he tries his best to.

Even though Peter gets a glimpse of what his reality is, why does he continue his ways? Why is the renunciation of the false so hard to him?

Acharya Prashant Ji:

It’s not about being hard or easy, it’s a choice. If you want to renounce the false, it gets renounced. It is neither easy nor difficult. It happens. And if you don’t want to renounce it, it doesn’t get renounced. It is neither easy nor difficult.

Are you getting it?

‘Easy’ and ‘difficult’ come in context of the external obstacle. There is no external obstacle, there is just a choice.

If I want to lift this (lifting a glass of water kept on the table), it is easy. If I want to lift this (lifting the table), it is difficult because the obstacle is external. If it is external, I will call this ‘easy’ or ‘difficult’, but in these matters it is just a choice. There is no external challenge. You are the one making choice about yourself – it is neither easy nor difficult. It’s just a ‘Yes’, or ‘No’. Say, “Yes,” it’s done. Say, “No,” it’s not done.