By the feeling, it's the same. But it's an important distinction. You cannot change "the people", but you can change yourself. And that is very different. In the first, you are subservient of something much larger than you, and the second is a world of possibilities. Turning your thinking around enables you to have your best possible experience of your own life - or so they say.
> In the first, you are subservient of something much larger than you, and the second is a world of possibilities.
The latter is a much more grim perspective. What it means is that, if you've been putting all your effort, all your effort is still not enough, and you objectively suck and you will never stop being useless trash. But if you consider people as an unpredictable, unstoppable force, then it's much easier to accept, and just make your way around it. Like weather. It really sucks when I want to go out but then exactly at this moment a huge storm breaks out, but there's nothing I can do about it, so I'd better adjust my life to the fact that weather sometimes sucks and that's it. While I could've planned for bad weather, at its core the fact that weather sometimes sucks is not my fault and there's nothing I can do about it.
Exactly like weather. Grimness has almost nothing to do with the subject here. What I want to communicate is specifically not about how the world is, but about what we do with our experience in it. And how we react to that experience, inside and outside. What I would like to put forward is that we cannot substantially change the world, or the people, but we can change ourselves, and with that, how we experience the world - and ourselves within it.
I would like to add that I'm not on a high horse here. I too suck at this. But I do think that it is a worthy effort, and something that is a Good Thing for the self, and to whom and whatever comes into contact with that person too.
