On some pitch black mornings, hearing what I knew was a
cold wind howling outside, I might think, “Well, it is
certainly comfortable in this bed, and maybe it wouldn’t
hurt if I just skipped practicing to-day.” But my
response to this was not to draw on something called will
power, to insult or threaten myself, but to take a longer
look at my life, to extend my vision, to think about the
whole of my experience, to reconnect present and future,
and quite specifically, to ask myself, “Do you like
playing the cello or not? Would you like to play it
better or not?” When I put the matter this way I could
see that I enjoyed playing the cello more than I enjoyed
staying in bed. So I got up. If, as sometimes happened
or happens, I do stay in bed, not sleeping, not really
thinking, but just not getting up, it is not because will
power is weak but because I have temporarily become
disconnected, so to speak, from the wholeness of my life.
I am living in that Now that some people pursue so
frantically, that gets harder to find the harder we look
for it.
John Holt, Freedom and Beyond, p. 119
See also this comment by Z_M_Davis.