Read the passage and answer the questions that follow.

Life is about expressing and developing our individuality as fully as possible—it is about self-realization. This process is what I call the “human revolution.”

There are many kinds of revolutions— political, economic, industrial, scientific, artistic, and so on. But no matter how external factors change, the world will never get better as long as people remain selfish and apathetic.

An inner change for the better in a single person is the essential first turn of the wheel in the process of making the human race stronger and wiser. This “human revolution” is, I believe, the most fundamental and most vital of all revolutions. This revolution—an inner process of self-reformation—is completely bloodless and peaceful. In it, everyone wins and there are no victims.

Life is a struggle with ourselves; it is a tug-of-war between moving forward and slipping backward, between happiness and misery. We are changing constantly, but the real issue is whether we change for the better or the worse, whether or not we succeed in enlarging our narrow, self-centered focus to take a broader view.

Every day we are faced with countless choices and decisions. We have to decide which path to take in order to feel good about ourselves and become better, more generous-spirited individuals. If we just allow ourselves to be ruled by force of habit, the way we’ve always reacted to a given situation, we will be drawn down the path of least resistance and stop growing as a person.

But if we succeed in challenging ourselves on a fundamental level, we can change from someone who is buffeted about by the environment or the people around us to someone who can positively influence our situation and surroundings.