I read the translation of "The first day of the of the rest of my life" and it is absolutely beautiful. The ideas of how the Yetzer Hara is fueled by frustration, lack, and by trying to reach the stars in a single leap... spoke to me deeply.
I also read "The Big Book" over shabbos - it's fascinating. And the underlying yesod, which is letting of the grandiose plans and focusing on the here and the now in the form of "What does Hashem Want?" is beautiful and freeing. It removes the pressure and the tenseness, and it opens us up to true and natural avodah - which lets us finally achieve our goals. The "lack" is gone - or better yet - "filled".
"... Phaedrus wrote a letter about a pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain... in the company of a holy man and his adherents. But he never reached the mountain. After the third day he gave up, exhausted, and the pilgrimage went on without him. He said he had the physical strength but physical strength wasn't enough. He had the intellectual motivation but that wasn't enough either. He didn't think he had been arrogant but thought he was undertaking the pilgrimage to broaden his experience, to gain understanding for himself. He was trying to use the mountain for his own purposes and the pilgrimage too. He regarded himself as the fixed entity not the pilgrimage of the mountain, and thus wasn't really ready for it. He speculated that the other pilgrims, the ones who reached the mountain , probably sensed the holiness of the mountain so intensely that each footstep was an act of devotion, an act of submission to this holiness. The holiness of the mountain infused into their own spirits enabled them to endure far more than anything he, with his greater physical strength, could take.
To the untrained eye ego-climbing and selfless climbing may appear identical. Both kinds of climbers place one foot in front of the other. Both breath in and out at the same rate. Both stop when tired. Both go forward when rested. But what a difference! The ego-climber is like an instrument that's out of adjustment. He puts his foot down an instant too soon or too late. He's likely to miss a beautiful passage of sunlight through the trees. He goes on when the sloppiness of his step shows he's tired. He rests at odd times. He looks up the trail trying to see what's ahead even when he knows what's ahead because he just looked a second before. He goes too fast or too slow for the conditions and when he talks his talk is forever about somewhere else, something else. He's here but he's not here. He rejects the here, is unhappy with it, wants to be farther up the trail but when he gets there will be just as unhappy because then it will be here. What he's looking for, what he wants, is all around him, but he doesn't want that because it is all around him. Every step is an effort, both physically and spiritual, because he imagines his goal to be external and distant".
"... So when I start to climb-especially when I'm on a big wall, whatever difficulties - I am so concentrated that there is nothing else existing; there's only a few meters of wall where I am hanging and climbing; and in this concentration, everything seems quite logical. There is no danger anymore. The danger is gone... But the concentration is absolute..."