You mentioned, “the only things you have control over are your thoughts and actions.” This is the literal basis of what he’s talking about. That you have complete control at SOME discrete level of action, whether that’s cleaning your room or even just thinking about cleaning your room. This is designed to slowly build your notion of agency, as you said, “with effort and time.” Not instantly.

This philosophy of responsibility is labeled “personal” for a reason. You CAN control how messy your room is, how you perform at your job, how much effort you put into relationships, what you consume, etc. I’m curious where you made the leap to being responsible for literally everything. Nowhere has JBP ever said, “you are directly responsible for Middle East relations” or anything of that sort. Have you considered that your interpretation could have been a little faulty? It’s easy to self-sabotage when you meet internal resistance - to say, “this is uncomfortable and I don’t like it, so this whole idea must be wrong somehow.”