“If Others Have Their Will Ann Hath A Way.”

I have been thinking recently about effecting the will. Please understand “thinking” to mean snippets of moments when the issue comes up in my mind--small insights but no real conclusions. It began a couple of months ago when a friend had informed me that he had hired a personal trainer to help him and his wife lose weight. The issue was simple: he wanted to work out, but he could not do it himself. My first question was: why could he not do it himself?

Of course now, in the month of the Ramadan, effecting the will surrounds me. I make an intention to not eat, and all day I go without food. Food could be right in front of me and my stomach is rumbling, but I do not eat. I willfully deny myself, and, despite the urgings of the body, I effect my will.

So it is evident that man can accomplish his goals. Fasting is proof of this. Yet, what blocks my friend from working out himself? Why did he feel he needed to hire someone to motivate him when it is his own desire to lose weight? My immediate answer to this was that my friend desired the result of working out—that of losing weight—but did not desire the means to attain that end. That makes sense and is illogical at the same time. It makes sense because to work out is an arduous exertion, and one that one may be disinclined to perform, especially due to inertia. However, the only way to lose weight healthily is to work out and diet; so to desire weight loss (without illness) requires one to perform that arduous task. So it would be irrational to want to be skinny but not want to work to be skinny. It is, in effect, a contradiction to desire weight loss but hate working out.

What further complicates this scenario is that the desire to be skinny clearly outweighs the laziness. If it did not, then my friend would not spend his money to hire a personal trainer. If the desire to lose weight is stronger, and there is knowledge of how to lose weight, then why would there be a need for a personal trainer? This is what stumps me. Why could not the will to be thin assert itself, and my friend, with the goal of being skinny in mind, work out on his own?

There are probably a plethora of psychological theories and studies that could point to why humans contradict themselves. It could be something subconscious, like the rift between the superego and the id. But if it is subconscious, and I do not have access to my subconscious, then it does not help me to solve the problem. I would like to solve this problem because, in the end, this is a problem for all of us. I may use my friend as an example, but I too have contradictory desires. I want to be published, yet I do not write. And I know I can effect my will because I do so all the time. Even if the issue is psychological, I fail to grasp how reasoning it out would not help the situation. For if one can present a logical argument to me or my friend of how we can accomplish our goals, then it only stands to reason that we would follow through with that line of reasoning. If we do not, at least we understand what the logical thing to do is.

It may be as simple as just disregarding the contradictory will and effecting the real goal. Theoretically this would do, but in practice it is not that easy. The power of the human will is something I must save for another post, but it is far more powerful than I believe many imagine. Two clashing wills, vying to attain reality, is probably the most difficult thing to overcome. And maybe that’s why my friend hired a personal trainer: to leave the decision-making out of his hands and put it in the hands of another. By making it a duty to someone else (the personal trainer is, after all, trying to get paid), the issue of what my friend desires becomes a long term goal. The immediate goal is to attend the appointment with the trainer and pay him. It is a delaying tactic really, but an excuse to overcome his own inertia and assert his real goal.

Now if only there were a personal trainer for writing…