Often people talk about the will, or will-power, as part of the struggle to be a certain way, to overcome flaws or things that we view as negative and wish to change. You decide that smoking tabacco is bad for you, so you say to yourself “I quit,” and then the battle ensues, your will-power over the addiction and habit of smoking. Or you say you’ll get fit this year, stick to your exercise program, and call upon your will to keep to it, to go for that run or go to the gym even if you don’t feel much like it.

The strength of your will is given much focus here. The stronger your will, the better. If you can overcome habits and tendencies to be one way in favour of another, then that’s got to be a good thing, right? If you can control yourself to such a degree, then naturally you’ll live a happier and better life, because what is better than control?

In the battles that go on inside us, between what we are and what we should be, we use our will-power to struggle, to fight the “good fight”.

But let’s take a closer look at the will. Firstly, will your arm to raise. Really call upon all your strength of will-power! How did that feel? Did anything happen? Was the movement graceful or jerky, relaxed or tense? There you can see your will-power conquering your body, what a feat!

Now, just do this:

Raise your arm.

How was that? Compare that action with the one of using your will to control your body. Repeat the process a few times until you get a feel for each one.

It may be clear now that using the will is a case of strength vs strength, with the stronger prevailing. If you have a strong habit or resistance, then you have to make your will stronger to overcome it. You have to struggle that much more, use that much more tension and effort. You get the feeling of holding your breath.

The difference here was one of separation. In the first exercise, your will conquered your body, as if “you” and “your body” were separate. In the second exercise, there was just the body and raising the arm, “you” and the action were one, if indeed there was a “you” at all.

Not everyone talks about will-power as separation and struggle, however. The true power of the will is this: Just do it. That’s all there is to it. It is not about becoming so strong that you overcome all obstacles, it is largely that you learn to see the obstacles for what they are, which naturally weakens the resistance they cause. Instead of acting within the scope of judgement, saying “this is bad and this is good and I must force myself to do good”, there is a gentler way of letting change happen naturally through our own awareness. Using force instead of awareness, we are blind to the why of it, and sooner or later a part of us will rebel against that control.

The effectiveness of the will is not through strength to overcome, but through clarity of purpose.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 27th, 2006 at 10:00 am and is filed under abarefootman. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.