I think Ainslie’s theory of willpower excels at explaining instances of weakness-of-will—I badly want to be the sort of person who regularly goes to the gym, but it wouldn’t hurt much to hold off starting till next week…
On your theory, isn’t it a little mysterious that you have conflicting local and global interests like this? Or do you think that you basically don’t have this kind of goal-conflict?
“Not today, but tomorrow I really will!” is an obvious failure mode. Do not do obvious failure modes. Today’s cross-section and tomorrow’s should no more conflict than your left hand and your right.
“I badly want to be the sort of person who regularly goes to the gym, but it wouldn’t hurt much to hold off starting till next week” — on the contrary, it does hurt to hold off until next week, by a week of not being the person you want to be. You can be that person right now by going to the gym. If you want a thing, and you can have it right now, take it. When you grok this, action is effortless.
I think Ainslie’s theory of willpower excels at explaining instances of weakness-of-will—I badly want to be the sort of person who regularly goes to the gym, but it wouldn’t hurt much to hold off starting till next week…
On your theory, isn’t it a little mysterious that you have conflicting local and global interests like this? Or do you think that you basically don’t have this kind of goal-conflict?
“Not today, but tomorrow I really will!” is an obvious failure mode. Do not do obvious failure modes. Today’s cross-section and tomorrow’s should no more conflict than your left hand and your right.
“I badly want to be the sort of person who regularly goes to the gym, but it wouldn’t hurt much to hold off starting till next week” — on the contrary, it does hurt to hold off until next week, by a week of not being the person you want to be. You can be that person right now by going to the gym. If you want a thing, and you can have it right now, take it. When you grok this, action is effortless.