On ‘The Fountainhead’: Why is authenticity so difficult for some people?

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

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:

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.

‘Easy’ and ‘difficult’ come in the context of an 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…