The specific context of that is in changing bad habits; the only way to improve is to do something different. Typically people would rather keep doing the same thing, but with better consequences.
Changing while remaining the same is what Algebra is all about. Identify the quality you wish to hold invariant, then find the transformations that do so. Changing things while leaving them the same in important ways is how problems are solved.
--Patrick J. MacDonald
An interesting quote, but isn’t it basically the definition of identity? The part that remains the same while changing all the while?
The specific context of that is in changing bad habits; the only way to improve is to do something different. Typically people would rather keep doing the same thing, but with better consequences.
Changing while remaining the same is what Algebra is all about. Identify the quality you wish to hold invariant, then find the transformations that do so. Changing things while leaving them the same in important ways is how problems are solved.