In preparation for my online talk tonight, I extracted 25 Lessons from Henry Hazlitt’s The Way to Will Power (1922). Hope to see you there. 1 The will obeys desire, and the strongest desires within us prevail. The key to obtaining power over the will is to master the desire. No desire in this world can be obtained save the sacrifice of some other desires. 2 Mastery of desire must come to terms with the cost of every choice, which is that which is foregone in the course of taking the steps necessary to achieve your goal. 3 Most our goals in life are connected to something remote in time, but our goals are constantly dethroned by shorter term desires. 4 Your desire for some goal must be linked to your desire to pay the price to obtain that goal. It is very easy to desire future sobriety in the midst of a hangover, to long to be thin once you finished a ice cream binge, to have more discipline about sleeping after a 10-hour sleep. 5 Obtaining will power always involves a time trade off: sacrificing now for what might be obtained later. This is part of the price, not just the immediate opportunity costs of your choice but those later as well. 6 Will power require deliberation over your choices. Do not accept moral canons and standards from the community around you, because doing so can merely reflect fear and a lack of thought. Examine right and wrong, principled and unprincipled for yourself and overcome the fear of criticism. 7 There is no credit due to you for failing to give into habits that do not tempt you. If you are good from docility but not self control, there is no real reward. 8 The intellectual does not create our desires. It transforms them. 9 It is easier to swear to change once faced with the cost of your failure to change. The trick is to actual change right now, and not regret past failings. 10 Do not make vast numbers of resolutions. Make far fewer, and never out of disgust or passion. Resolutions should be realizable and rational, made with careful thought. 11 Strolling in valley is easier than climbing mountains. The pleasure of the stroll is what you must forgo to climb the mountain, a far harder task that we all tend to avoid in the desire for short-term pleasure. 12 Consider the price of all your ambitions, and never make the price too high. The price of studying is giving up a night of partying. The price of professional accomplishment might be to go easy on the drink or Facebook surfing or Netfix gawking. The price must be payable else the ambition dies. 13 Fill your mind with good visions, not terrible images filled with fear. The more we fear, the more we risk actually realizing them. We tend to act on morbid pictures that exert strange fascinations. 14 We all have habits and they save us time and resources: how we tie our shoes, how we shave, how we put on our clothes. Work too can become a habit in the best way but only through unrelenting repetition. 15 The popular teachings of psychoanalysis run completely contrary to self control and self mastery. This popular myth imagines us all to be hopelessly victimized by our subconscious, which will become true if we believe it (ironically). 16 Conquer the habit of yielding to temptation just because it is tempting (whatever it happens to be). When you give in, you create the desire for more. On the other hand, when you resists, you strengthen the power to resist. 17 Concentration is a learned skill, something you have to practice to feel and feel in order for it to become habitual. 18 Our conception of will power is far too high. We imagine great figures in history, but we neglect its humbler forms that appear in the daily challenge. We need a program of work for daily achievement. 19 Delay is a great enemy because the task you need to accomplish becomes ever more fearsome. The longer you stand on the diving board, the colder the water becomes in your mind. He gives the example of asking for a raise. 20 We have more mental resources than we know. We limit ourselves based on our bad habits. There are second and third winds - we just have to push to release them. 21 We must learn to break through fatigue barriers. We can do this with setting and achieving incremental goals. 22 Geniuses and artists do not drag themselves through work. They love it. Their work is their play. Allow the distinction to blur in your mind. 23 Forget the bogeyman of “overwork.” This is not really a temptation most people face. Wasting time doing thing unconnected to your goal is the real temptation. Mental breakdowns come from worry, dissipation, and bad health. 24 Never boast about your accomplishments and will power. Reject the dominating personality. Let your actions and achievements speak, not your words. 25 Moral courage is the rarest thing, far more rare than the willingness to kill and be killed in war. People fear unpopularity more than anything. The final test of will power is the conviction that you are right even when the crowds are hurling invectives at you. liberty.me/classes/liberty-classics-the-way-to-will-power-by-henry-hazlitt/
Posted on: Sun, 01 Jun 2014 18:03:12 +0000
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