Failure of will or doing what you want?

[RaBind]

What is the cause when people don't do things? is it a failure of will or are they just doing what they want? This subject, I think, applies to intps a lot, it certainly does for me and my continuous struggle with procrastination and following through with things. I have some vague preconception that a distinction may be worked out through semantics. Discuss.

The subject is touched upon in this choose you own philosophy game castle-forest-island-sea.

http://www2.open.ac.uk/openlearn/philosophy/castle-forest-island-sea.html#2q.1c

 

[BrainVessel]

Failure of will to do what I know I need to do in order to do what I want.

 

[Pizzabeak]

Mostly due to schedule and failure of will or, at best, innocent naivete. There are things one is doing and things one should or wants to do; sometimes one, perhaps foolishly or erroneously, continues doing what one is doing instead of what he/she should or wants to - sometimes to the dismay of fellow compatriots. There will be certain realizations or ideals such as, "Oh, I went over here and spent ten bucks, albeit for a decent purpose, whereas if I went over there and did that I could have saved ten bucks or spent it for a more useful purpose"

As previously mentioned, most of it is wasting time which, if anything, some good or decent experience can come out of it. In most cases the sooner is kinda better. How hard can it be? Sometimes there's too much stuff. Suppose it's the right time. I don't envy anyone in a position where they're forced to choose.

Sometimes it might actually be more welcoming to procrastinate a little and then get started on whatever, you know, because getting started and doing stuff is the best thing ever and makes the producers feel better about stuff, busy.

 

[nanook]

schedule is close. i would suggest a broader concept and say it's a failure of your "map" of how things can work out. this includes psychological and physiological self-knowledge plus knowledge of your social and physical environment and how they all relate. your schedule would be your navigation inside of this map. you are lost in the forest and move in circles.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Failure of will to do what I know I need to do in order to do what I want.

^

Unless a person is borderline catatonic/majorly depressed, I wouldn't say anyone has a failure of will. More that there is a disconnect between rational coexistence in society and self-indulgent whims/personal lifestyle. Look at politicians, businessmen or other highly involved public workers for example, they're so focused on society and external demands that it isn't unbelievable that some of them might neglect their personal lives.


I'd probably have more that I'm thinking of saying, but the OP didn't seem as fleshed out. Could you elaborate more on what you mean by "failure of will", and which things aren't being done?

 

[RaBind]

Unless a person is borderline catatonic/majorly depressed, I wouldn't say anyone has a failure of will. More that there is a disconnect between rational coexistence in society and self-indulgent whims/personal lifestyle. Look at politicians, businessmen or other highly involved public workers for example, they're so focused on society and external demands that it isn't unbelievable that some of them might neglect their personal lives.

So you believe that everone has will, but the psychological state to channel that will is the difference between productivity, struggling to deliver results and, like in ur example, obsessions? That does sound quite plausible.

I'd probably have more that I'm thinking of saying, but the OP didn't seem as fleshed out. Could you elaborate more on what you mean by "failure of will", and which things aren't being done?

Well I sort of had it in mind that I didn't want to limit the discussion to the specifics, also the fact that I'm lazy and just don't have as much to go with when I'm not replying to any discussion points.

My thought was that failure of will might apply to things that are not desired but are needed or are simply of importence, and you fail to have said things done. While doing what you want is simply that, you don't do things because you want to do something else which if isn't mutually exclusive, it is regarded as so in the constraints of time or some other limitation.

 

[EditorOne]

I have found that if I take whatever the ultimate goal is and slice it down into smaller and smaller component parts, I can hold it together long enough to tackle it on a "by the slice" basis. An enormity of concept can be daunting, just like someone expecting to sit down and eat five pizzas all at once will see the futility of even trying. One slice, though, is no big deal, and a couple of slices a day reduces the whole thing down to manageability.

This is the pizza version of "one day at a time."

Just remember to order up the project in a variety of pizza types. Even I would get tired of pepperoni and sausage five days in a row. Apply that to projects any way you want - break it up into research, writing, experimentation, field trips, whatever flavors your project or goal come in.

We see the big picture. It takes some application to break it down.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

So you believe that everone has will, but the psychological state to channel that will is the difference between productivity, struggling to deliver results and, like in ur example, obsessions? That does sound quite plausible.

Well I sort of had it in mind that I didn't want to limit the discussion to the specifics, also the fact that I'm lazy and just don't have as much to go with when I'm not replying to any discussion points.

My thought was that failure of will might apply to things that are not desired but are needed or are simply of importence, and you fail to have said things done. While doing what you want is simply that, you don't do things because you want to do something else which if isn't mutually exclusive, it is regarded as so in the constraints of time or some other limitation.

Pretty much yeah, I think it's just a matter of psychological orientation.

The relationship between working and wealth is perhaps the best example. Wealth is the method by which people ensure both their survival and prosperity in the modern world, yet the average person cannot accumulate wealth by doing only what they want to do at all times.

In such a situation, it might be the case that a person does will to be wealthy, does will to be financially secure, yet what they don't value is the means to get there which in general is through employment and the cost(time+money) of professional skills/academic education.

I assume it's the job of the rational parts of the mind to create those value associations in order to attain desired goals(I value wealth, and education/employment will earn me wealth therefore I also value education/employment).

 

[RadicalDreamer31]

Yeah sure.

Have you read / seen anything by Daniel Kahneman or Dan Ariely?

It's helpful to know that one is fallible, and biased towards certain actions. YOU may want to do a thing, however the rest of your brain doesn't give a shit or even know about it. So ask yourself "Is this me, or is this my lizard brain making this choice?" You think you are in control, but you're not really.

 

[StevenM]

My understanding, is that it takes more willpower to do something, the more it falls outside of one's intrinsic interests. And they say we only have a limited reserve of willpower to use.

Perhaps, the problems lies 'basically' in one of two areas.
- The applications of one's willpower.
- The intrinsic interests that the person has.

It may be possible to tweak one or both of those for maximum productivity.

 

[Architect]

I don't have my finger on the research at the moment but experiments have found that we only have a limited capacity for making decisions. I forget the number but say its something like 40 or so. As we make that many non trivial decisions through the day we run out of juice to make more. Will usually involves doing something, so in this sense we see that will has only a limited capacity per day.

Which I notice, after about 8-12 hours of having great will to do what I want, and doing it, I just peter out.