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Comment by wcarron | Hacker News Reader

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That is a commonly observable post-willpower attitude. Unfortunately it doesn’t help those for whom it didn’t work. It’s like saying get up and live to a depressed one.

Saying that as a guy who punched evolving clinical depression in her face without medications with character-intrinsic anger. The problem with that approach is that not everyone has anger as a reaction so default that it still remains in a depressed state.

That said, glad you’re fine.

Also, people claiming such wins and calling others weak for not doing the same come across as a bit... not self-aware? If your will power is so great why did you end up with these bad addictions in the first place?

Doesn't matter how you or I got wherever. What matters is seeing where you are, where you want to be, and doing what it takes to get there. You're correct in that I was at that time, 100% a weak lecherous person. A slave to my desires for chemical escapism and pleasure. I chose, eventually, not to be ruled by them. Anyone and everyone can. It's not a moral failure to slip up. It's not a moral failure to say "I choose and desire to use nicotine or watch porn or [insert "vice" here] without reservation.", either. The moral failure is the rejection or abdication of the responsiblity for your actions.

I heartily disagree. We are not slaves and victims to our biology and environments. We are, and always have been, our own masters. Want to lose weight? Eat less. Want to eat healthier? Stop buying fast food. Want to get fitter? Go to the gym. Want to make make more friends. Force yourself into more social interactions. Want to quit nicotine? Suck it up and shiver in cold sweats on your floor for 4 days.

You can throw whatever objections you desire here. They are not sustained. Ultimate culpability and responsibility has always been with us.

Do you think I'm post-willpower? That's laughable. I still, and probably always will, crave nicotine. I drive by gas stations all the time and that little voice "just one tin" is there. I say no. Anyone can. Simply put: It is a choice. You choose what you do and are, every single time, without exception. That is the freedom to which every human is sentenced.

It doesn't work, until it does. But perhaps some other thing actually did the working.

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