How to lớn muster the will you need to lớn find your way
Posted September 18, 2013
The old English proverb asserts itself with complete assurance: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Like many time-worn sayings, this claim that mind always rules over matter rings true only some of the time. Sometimes we don’t have the will; sometimes we thua kém our way. What should we vì chưng then?
Etta James, the best blues singer ever, knew more than most people about not having the will and losing her way. Born to lớn a 14-year-old mother who wasn’t interested in children and a father who had long since disappeared, she once described her childhood as a series of one-night stands: she was continually passed from one relative sầu khổng lồ another. As an adult, she abused her body almost constantly. The men in her life—managers, singers, & family members alike—frequently took advantage of her: musically, financially, and sexually. After a withering battle with heroin addiction, Etta launched a comebachồng with an album titled “The Seven Year Itch.” The most telling tuy vậy on the album captures the power of her fierce spirit và the aimlessness of her fragile soul. In “I Got The Will,” she recalls that her mama told her the old saying—that if there’s a will, there’s got lớn be a way. Etta found otherwise: “I got the will but I can’t find my way now.”
As Etta says, sometimes in life we have sầu the will, but we can’t find the way. At other times, presumably, we know the way, but we can’t seem to muster the will. In either case, getting from wherever we are to lớn some place better is our biggest challenge in life. How do we get from here to there? How bởi vì we find both the will & the way?
At the start of each New Year, the literary agent John Brockman poses a provocative question lớn more than a hundred leading scientists & science writers, & asks them to lớn respond. Brockman posts the results on his trang web, edge.org. In years past, he has asked: What vày you believe sầu is true even though you cannot prove it? What have you changed your mind about? What is your dangerous idea?
Last year, Brockman asked: What is your favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation? In other words, what deep puzzle in the universe or in human life has been unexpectedly solved by applying a simple and elegant principle?
The answers include some principles you would expect, such as relativity theory & quantum mechanics. Other responses seem almost too obvious lớn qualify. For example, everything is the way it is because it got that way. Oh, really? My dad—who’s not a scientist—would sometimes give a similar answer khổng lồ my incessant questions about why this or why that. He’d say, “Just because.”
The most useful of last year’s crop of answers came from Richard Thaler, a professor of behavioral economics at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business và co-author of the recent book Nudge. What’s his deep, elegant & beautiful explanation? Commitment. He says, “It is a fundamental principle of economics that a person is always better off if they have sầu more alternatives khổng lồ choose from. But this principle is wrong. There are cases when I can make myself better off by restricting my future choices & committing myself lớn a specific course of action.”
Thaler explains that the idea of commitment as a strategy is an ancient one. “Odysseus famously had his crew tie hlặng khổng lồ the mast so he could listen to lớn the Sirens’ songs without falling inlớn the temptation to lớn steer the ship into the rocks. And he committed his crew khổng lồ not listening by filling their ears with wax. Another classic is Cortez’s decision to lớn burn his ships upon arriving in South America, thereby removing retreat as an option his crew could consider.”
Thaler’s insight is that an exercise of will involves committing ourselves khổng lồ one course of action and—this may be the hardest part—setting aside all other possible courses of action. As 20th-century American poet Theodore Roethke says in the title poem from his Pulitzer Prize-winning volume The Waking, “I learn by going where I have sầu lớn go.” If you have the will khổng lồ commit yourself, you can find your way in life.
Bạn đang xem: Where there's a will there's a way
When you’re singing the blues about what to do and how khổng lồ bởi it, remember Etta James. She sang more truth than perhaps she realized. She may have sầu said in her song that she didn’t know the way, but she knew all along that she had the will—& eventually discovered in her life that she did know the way. But she had lớn make a decision about which way khổng lồ choose, which required her lớn phối aside other options. To have the power is eventually khổng lồ see the path. We learn by going where we have sầu to go.
So get going. Ask yourself where in your life you need lớn stop waffling và make a commitment. Ask yourself where you need khổng lồ start going và make progress. Things will get done in your life because you make a commitment khổng lồ bởi them. You learn by going where you have sầu khổng lồ go. Explanations don’t get any more elegant than this.
Xem thêm: Bộ Chơi Game Kết Nối Tivi Không Cần Băng Cài, 2, Máy Chơi Game Cầm Tay Kết Nối Tv
Galen Guengerich, Ph.D., is a senior minister of All Souls Unitarian Church in Manhattan và the author of the book God Revised: How Religion Must Evolve sầu in a Scientific Age.
