Temptation can be sneaky – a rationalising voice that subtly undermines your resolve. But there are ways to outsmart it
My editor needs this essay from me by the end of the day today. I have plenty of time to finish it before then. And yet, even as I resolve to get it finished, I recognise the possibility that I won’t. What are the ways this could happen?
There are several possibilities. For example, something like a severe illness or a power outage in my office might prevent me from meeting the deadline despite my best efforts. Or something like a family emergency might give me a reason not to meet it and, in light of this reason, I might choose to do just that.
These first two possibilities are easy enough to understand. But they are not the possibilities that interest me. The possibility I want to reflect on is the possibility that I simply will not meet the deadline – not because I was prevented from getting the essay done, nor because I found there to be a reason to give it up. It is the possibility that I just won’t act as I’ve resolved to, despite not abandoning this resolution.
This kind of thing can happen in several ways. Here is one of them: I resolve to meet the deadline, do all I can to follow through, and nevertheless come up short. The fickle phrase ‘all I can’ makes it hard to evaluate this account of my day. Suppose the deadline was to submit 2,000 words and, by the end of the day, I had written just 1,500. Couldn’t I have found more time? Couldn’t I have written more efficiently? Surely there are some cases where the answers to such questions are no. In those cases, we might say, I will have failed in the task despite my best efforts.
But the more common case is different. As my day unfolds, I spend too little time at my desk and too much time going out for coffee and chatting with my colleagues. And during the time I am in my office, I am too often doing things like checking social media, staring out the window, and reading books and articles that are only marginally related to my topic. I don’t do these things because I have chosen not to meet the deadline, but always in the belief that I am doing what is needed to stay on task. Nor, however, are these innocent mistakes like failing to anticipate a traffic jam in deciding when to leave for an appointment. I do these things because I am tempted to do them, and it is in this way that I become irresolute.
This notion of temptation can be vexing. In the movies, temptation is depicted in the image of the devil on your shoulder, telling you to do something you know is wrong. But that’s not the only way temptation works. In the present case, if that were the form of temptation I succumbed to, then it would be a case of changing my mind about whether to meet the deadline after all, by becoming convinced that the task is not all that important. The devil can do that, for sure. But the case I’ve described is not like this. Instead, it’s supposed to be a case in which, of my own volition but without changing my mind, I fail to do what I said I would.
When I am tempted in this second way, the devil’s work is subtler. Rather than trying to persuade me to abandon my resolution outright, he invites me to say things involving words like ‘only’ and ‘just’. It’s only a five-minute break. I just need to clear my head. In saying these things, I tell myself that I am following through on my resolution even though, in fact, I am not. And it is in this way that I end up failing to do what I have resolved to do – where the failure is of my own volition, but not because I have abandoned my resolve.
Given that I’ve recognised that I might succumb to this kind of temptation, what are the ways I can head it off? One strategy that seems like a non-starter is to exercise willpower by refusing to reconsider the resolution I have made. That’s a good strategy in some cases. For example, if I’ve made up my mind to complete a five-mile run today, and I recognise in advance that when my alarm goes off it will seem that I may as well stay in bed, and while I’m on the run it will seem like I am justified in cutting it short, then I can keep myself on track by refusing to reopen the question, treating my decision as authoritative in just those contexts where I’ll be tempted to question it.
Some ways of giving in to temptation, like staring out the window, might be among the things I have to do in order to finish my writing
In the present case, though, this strategy won’t work. Why not? Because the temptation that leads me to not finish my writing is not a temptation to change my mind and do something else instead. That is, when I give in to this temptation it is not because I ever took back the decision to do my work, or made up my mind to spend the day chatting with my colleagues and staring out the window, instead of doing what I needed to meet the deadline. Therefore, I can’t prevent myself from succumbing to this temptation just by refusing to reconsider my resolution to get the essay done.
Here is another strategy, which seems more promising than the first one. Some of the tempting activities I gave in to – like going out for coffee, checking social media, and chatting with my colleagues – are ones that I could have known would be tempting, and therefore I could have headed off these temptations by resolving not to give in to them, and refusing to reconsider this resolution when I was tempted to do so. This can be a wise way to proceed. It’s limited, however, by the difficulty of predicting in advance just what activities I will be tempted to tell myself are ‘just’ or ‘only’ one thing, when really they are ways of undermining my own resolve. Further, at least some of the things I do that can be ways of giving in to temptation, like reading from a book on my shelf or staring out the window while I try to decide what to write, might also be among the things that I have to do in order to finish my writing, or at least to do so well. If I chain myself to my desk and don’t let myself look away from my screen or remove my hands from the keyboard until my essay is done, then I’ll definitely get it finished, but it probably won’t be much to read.
A third strategy would involve regular check-ups on my own progress, perhaps with rewards for good behaviour and penalties for non-compliance: 500 words in the next hour, say – and only if I get that done can I take a 10-minute social media break. That’s a useful strategy too. But it’s not ideal, since it carries all the risks of the second one. If I bang out those 500 words without doing any research or giving things much thought, just in order to get back on Twitter, my writing might end up worse than if I took my time and let it flow. Further, at least some cases where I fail to meet my goal will be ones where I had a good reason for doing so, say because something pressing came up or because I was working as hard as I could but just got stuck on a difficult paragraph. If this is what happened, then maybe I should give myself a break – but on the other hand, it’s just so easy to tell myself such a story in any particular case, and so to give myself an excuse for having given in.
Here is one more strategy, which I think can be employed in conjunction with the other ones. If it weren’t me, but rather a friend or a colleague who was checking up on my own progress, or evaluating my rationale for taking down a book or going out for some coffee, they’d probably take a different – and likely dimmer – view of how my work was going, and their advice would do a lot to keep me on track. Of course, in many cases it’s not reasonable to expect someone else to come around and check up on me in this way. Nevertheless, I can try to see myself as they would likely see me, treating my ‘just’ and ‘only’ as appeals that are likely to be mere excuses, and thereby holding myself to the standard that another person would. This is not, again, a failsafe approach, as the same room remains to tell myself a happy story about how my work-avoidant behaviour would be perceived. But the pressure to adopt an outsider’s perspective might provide a further check on this kind of rationalisation.
I think I’m going to get myself a cup of coffee. My work is coming along well now, and the walk will give me a chance to think through a few more things.
