Will And Willpower

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

On the path of self-development, each person is faced with the need to strengthen his will in order to ensure the achievement of the goals that he sets for himself.

Having decided to start playing sports, master a musical instrument, master a profession, solve a scientific problem, or whatever else, a person is faced with the need to direct his efforts, to stop involuntary impulses that lead far away from the goal.

Ultimately, it's about finding the freedom to do what you plan, and not go with the flow of events. That is why we need the will and the ability to manage our motivation - to be a human, not an animal.

If we were aware of ourselves during sleep, we would not be involved in absurd dream plots. We would understand that the events taking place with us are images that we can change.

The same thing happens to us in the so-called wakefulness - we live and do not realize that we are living, because we are involved in absurd scenarios and plots of life. We are not obliged to limit our lives to those scenarios that someone invented before us. We can build significantly more constructive and life-affirming relationships by drawing on the knowledge and resources available to us.

It is not necessary to adapt to circumstances all the time. Circumstances are changeable. We can change our lives and the relationships that structure our family life at work and in society as a whole.

Unfortunately, in the overwhelming majority of people, the key mental functions - reflection (the ability to be aware of what is happening) and will (the ability to initiate and direct activity) - are not developed, and for many they are not included at all.

As a result, a person lives as in a dream - passively being drawn into absurd social processes, identifying with roles and ideas about oneself.

Instead of taking responsibility for their lives and actively solving real problems, people are busy with games (activities for pleasure and maintaining the image of the role being played).

For the most part, people are not aware of themselves (they have an ego, but do not have their own "I", do not identify themselves as a "control center" from which meaning, intention and volitional effort are generated), do not realize the subjectivity of their own and others' reality. The consciousness of a modern person is a sleeping consciousness and that is why manipulation of people's consciousness is possible.

Mind sleep manifests itself to varying degrees in different people. For example, in the life of an uneducated person or in the life of a doctor of sciences. However, these differences become completely irrelevant when we talk about the fundamental difference between sleep and wakefulness. When you woke up in the morning, it doesn't matter if you dreamed of a solid vague nonsense, or you had a clear logical dream - this does not change the fact that you were sleeping.

In the so-called wakefulness, we also sleep when there is no activity of our true "I". Not the activity of the natural ego, but the activity of a real, creative source of activity.

The first level is lack of will. In a dream, this is a dreamless sleep, and in wakefulness, it is a reactive life, in which a person is nothing more than an animal, constantly reacting to various stimuli from the outside. They shouted at him, he was offended or angry, showed something tasty - he wanted to eat it, showed something on TV - he believed it, and so on. At this level, you don't need to include your brain at all - culture will provide all the necessary samples, and contexts will tell you what to do. As a last resort, you can just look at others and do as they do. This is the animal herd level of existence. The main motive of a person at this level is avoiding suffering and seeking pleasure.

The second level is the sleeping will. In a dream, the activity of this level manifests itself in unconscious actions, the absurdity of which can be recognized by a person only after awakening. In wakefulness, this is a passive life, that is, life along the course of events. This is not complete conformism, as in a reactive life, since a person, with the help of his volitional efforts, tries not only to adapt to the system, but also to participate in its development, being actively involved in existing life scenarios. The main motive of a person of this level is the search for confirmation of his self-image.

The third level is the awakened will. In a dream, this manifests itself as the awareness of oneself asleep. A person is asleep and knows that he is now asleep and can control the course of sleep or wake up at will. In wakefulness, this is an active life, that is, going beyond the limits of being conditioned by existing scenarios. Cultural patterns and scenarios become distinguishable for active consciousness. A person can make a choice based not on the image of himself in the eyes of others or his own eyes, but on the meaning he produces. The main motive of a person of this level is the creation of meaning and its embodiment in reality.

Realizing yourself means:

1) Dis-identify with what is happening (I am me, and the world is the world), turn on the "observer", learn to "see yourself from the outside."

2) Understand that most of what is happening is the images that our own consciousness creates (that is, take responsibility for what we see around us).

3) Accept the fact that we can change these images, which means that we can change reality with new actions.

Taek what is willpower?

Frequently, will is perceived by people as the ability to restrain oneself. However, such an understanding alienates a person from the development of real willpower.

Willpower is not the ability to restrain oneself, but, on the contrary, the ability to act from oneself, from the center of one's “I”. This is a fundamentally different interpretation of the will. Will comes from your "I", it is an effort that is generated by your "I" and is directed at action and creation, and not against yourself. Of course, you need to realize your “I” as a center of activity, learn to realize and act from this creative center.

After you have figured out what you want, you no longer restrain yourself, but do what you have in mind. So a person who really realizes that he wants to live without smoking directs his will to other things, and not to fight smoking.

Will is the ability to control primarily attention and, as a consequence, other mental processes. (imagination, memory, emotions, motivation).

Will manifests itself as the management of the significance of ideas (about anything) through the management of attention. Will relates to attention (on a spiritual level) in the same way as interest in thinking (on an intellectual level), a desire for emotions and feelings (on an emotional level), a need for physiological processes (on a physiological level), and a need for circumstances (on a behavioral level). level).

The article appeared thanks to the works of Vadim Levkin, Nikolai Kozlov and Nossrat Pezeshkian.

Dmitry Dudalov