Reading the small print of the service manual

I'm battling a headache right now - it's Day 5 of my latest cold - so this will be a short entry.

I'm just starting to read U2 by U2, and found this from Bono:

Your nature is a hard thing to change; it takes time. One of the extraordinary transferences that happen in your spiritual life is not that your character flaws go away but they start to work for you. A negative becomes a positive: you've a big mouth: you end up a singer. You're insecure: you end up a performer who needs applause.

And:

That to me is the spiritual life. The slow reworking and rebooting of a computer at regular intervals, reading the small print of the service manual. It has slowly rebuilt me in a better image. It has taken years, though, and it is not over yet.

As I see it, this is one of the few advantages of growing older: I've started figuring out a little bit more about how my thought processes function. This means that, hopefully, I am causing less harm to self and others, and maybe I can possibly make the world and other people slightly better off for having me around. At least, I can hope.