WILL AND CONVICTION

WILL AND CONVICTION

Dave and Mikhail were walking in the park after studying Geometry together. Dave seemed disturbed and wasn’t walking at the same pace as Mikhail was. Dave was left way behind and Mikhail stopped. Dave realized how far he was left behind and leaped ahead.

Mikhail: What is it, Dave?

Dave: Mikhail, I try to avoid indecent pictures and movies and all the media attention to sexuality and suggestive videos.

Mikhail: I understand and the problem is?

Dave: The problem is that I try to have strong will power to avoid all the trash but eventually end up right back where I started. I devour the pictures and enjoy them because they are enjoyable. I try to be strong and strengthen my will power, keep myself busy but I fall.

Mikhail:

Dave, Will is the courage Machine. They say, where there is a will there is a way. The way can be walked precisely because there is a will. Do not confuse it that because you are building your will, a way too will build on its own. Even if the way had to build itself, at every halt, it will ask your will, how much do you believe that the way is right? There will be no answer from the will. The will cannot think. The will can only be strong. Someone else is trying to make it strong. That ‘someone’ will have to answer the way. As the way does not find an answer, it halts and consequently the will does not know why it is being strengthened and stops persevering and you go back to old ways. The will here, is like a human bull dozer that can try to demolish a wall but takes a beating on the impact with the wall but does not know why it needs to demolish and it buckles under the pain of the impact.

There is no conviction. Only if you are convinced it is wrong will the willpower know to what end to strive towards and what is the price to pay if there is lack of will. The human bull dozer does not know why it has to pulverize and doesn’t think the pain of hitting the body on the wall is worth the pain. With every hit the pain is acute and it(will) weakens.

You have to be convinced that what is wrong should be refrained from. Although instincts and impulses that incline us to them (the wrong), they incline us to them because our nature is designed so. Similarly our intellect, our capacity to reason and knowledge is what is telling us that although we feel inclinations towards them, the inclinations should be kept in check. It is a different thing if even after being convinced you find it difficult. This is weakness and you have to try harder. You may still base your joy on those things (wrong) and hence it is difficult. It is like a dog that has become loyal to his master but the master may think it right for the dog to leave. But the Dog keeps returning. Loyalty to the master is what it (the dog) places its joy in and weakens the dog.

If you are convinced what is wrong should be avoided is the beginning of will power. Will power is not a huge drum to be filled by water. It rather is a huge drum with a hole underneath. The water keeps seeping but your conviction keeps willing towards filling more water. If human weakness makes you fail, it is precisely because all good things in life are worthy to be fought for and no good character comes easy. Falling is easier than picking oneself again.