Willpower or Masochism?

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Clarissa

August 12, 2013

If a method of life improvement (quitting smoking, maintaining a workout schedule, controlling a gaming or alcohol addiction, working on research, losing weight, etc.) requires you to engage with the completely meaningless concept of “willpower” in any way, you need to know that all you are doing is feeding your masochistic streak.

Solve the problems that prevent you from quitting smoking, maintaining a workout schedule, controlling a gaming or alcohol addiction, working on research, losing weight, etc. and the need for these behaviors will disappear without any kind of self-torture masking as an exercise of “willpower” being necessary.

Contrary to what you have been hearing, life is not a vale of tears and constant suffering is not the norm.

P.S. I’m spending all day today visiting doctors, hence a multitude of short posts.

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5 responses to “Willpower or Masochism?”

Tim

August 12, 2013

“P.S. I’m spending all day today visiting doctors, hence a multitude of short posts.”

Okay, lets try and come up with a joke. How many doctors does it take to care for one pregnant person?

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ladyleahjane

August 12, 2013

That’s what I discovered when I quit smoking. It wasn’t about willpower, for me, it was changing my mentality so I no longer felt so dependent upon the cigarettes. I used them as a social and sexual lubricant, so that I could socialize readily with other smokers, or use “wanna go out for a smoke?” as an excuse to chat up an attractive person. To quit smoking, I had to work on my self-confidence, so that I no longer relied upon the cigarettes to feel comfortable enough to have casual conversations or flirt.

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Z

August 13, 2013

This post is really true and people really do not understand these things. Behavior modification is *so* not where it’s “at”, and yet it is so fashionable…

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1. musteryou
  
  August 13, 2013
  
  Actually there have been scientific experiments done which show that even anticipating or visualising the exertion of will power, has the same effect as actually exerting will power. It becomes mentally exhausting and is self-defeating.
  
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2. bloggerclarissa
  
  August 14, 2013
  
  “Behavior modification is *so* not where it’s “at”, and yet it is so fashionable…”
  
  – It’s fashionable because there is an entire mentality of suffering as something good feeding it.
  
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