Irina Yakutenko

What is willpower?

There is no concept of “willpower” in science, this is a philistine term. Its scientific counterpart is the ability to resist impulsive behavior. What is an impulse? This is a strong desire that arises in the moment under the influence of emotions and often contradicts our long-term plans. A simple example: you are on a diet, but you come to visit where they offer you a cake. You look at it, it's so appetizing, so tasty, it must be so delightfully melting in your mouth - and you take a bite. Then, of course, you will reproach yourself: what have I done, I am losing weight, I may even have health problems due to weight. But late, you couldn't resist the impulse to eat the cake immediately. However, there are people who, in most cases, are able to resist the impulse to do something pleasant now, but harmful in the long run. That is what we call volitional.

Who can exercise willpower and who can't?

Until recently, it was believed that every person is able to develop willpower in himself, but most do not want to strain, they are lazy, blossomed - there are a lot of offensive diagnoses. But recent scientific evidence shows that this "wise" approach to the problem of lack of will is wrong. Among other things, this is proved by experiments in which researchers provoke people to impulsive actions. For example, the famous "marshmallow test". The bottom line is simple: the child has one marshmallow, and he can either eat it right now, or wait until the experimenter returns, who will give him another marshmallow - provided that the first one is not touched by the baby. And it turned out that about a third of the children are able to hold on, and two thirds are not. Adults in similar experiments are offered not sweets, but money. And they are also divided into two camps, although it is obvious that it is much more logical to wait and take a large amount.

When such experiments are carried out using functional magnetic tomography, which can be used to monitor the work of the brain in real time, it turns out that the brains of people who are more likely to agree to unfavorable in the future, but now pleasant offers, work differently than the brains of those who able to resist short-term temptation. In other words, in strong-willed people, the brain is initially more resistant to impulsive behavior: it suppresses it better. The differences can be very different: either their harmful impulse is not so strong, or those areas of the brain that are responsible for its suppression work more powerfully or more quickly, or both. From the point of view of biochemistry, the "wrong" work of the brain is determined by how neurotransmitters are produced in our head - chemical substances, which transmit orders from one part of the brain to another, including orders to resist the temptation or, conversely, immediately seize it.

And if you got the genes from your mom and dad that determine the “wrong” work of neurotransmitters, they will always work like that.

Your brain will always be bad at suppressing momentary emotional impulses, which means you will always be more prone to impulsive behavior. And because you read a million articles "How to become strong-willed person”and you will do some special auto-training in front of the mirror, the genes will not change and the new brain will not grow.

What should I do if I got "willless" genes?

The most important thing is to understand and accept that you are who you are and you can't change that. If you know that you are prone to impulsive behavior, you will have difficulty in overcoming any temptation with an effort of will - because the tools that are needed to manifest this very effort do not work well for you.

But this does not mean that life is over and you are destined to get fat, become a drug addict and lose your job due to the fact that you watch series non-stop. I have many recommendations for those who suffer from willpower problems. They are not based on conventional “common sense” or speculative psychological theories: they are the result of decades of neuroscience research. And one of the key recommendations is to get into situations as little as possible when you need to make an effort of will, to show an act of resistance to temptation. This is exactly what many consider willpower: when a person boldly looks at a cake, a glass or a cigarette, proudly turns away from them and beautifully walks into the sunset. This is exactly what needs to be avoided, because a brain that suppresses impulses poorly will lose the battle with emotional outburst. Therefore, if you have problems with sweets or alcohol, you need to remove cookies and wine from the apartment and do not buy them home under any pretext. If the temptation is not within reach, you will not be able to succumb to it.

You need to use the weak-willed brain not for exhausting and useless resistance to temptations, but for planning your life in such a way that you encounter them as little as possible.

From a neurobiological point of view, an impulsive desire to do something is primarily an emotion, and only a stronger emotion can interrupt it. The logical reasoning that this is harmful cannot be controlled by the impulse. Emotions arose in evolution much earlier than the "smart" areas of the brain responsible for logic and planning, and they are much more powerful. This pattern is very clearly manifested, for example, in smokers: they all know very well that smoking is dangerous to health, but as long as this thought remains at the level of logic, it is not able to overcome the desire to inhale. But when real health problems begin and the doctor, anxiously looking at the tests, says: “If you don’t quit smoking, you will die,” an emotional “hit” will occur. And the fear of imminent painful death can overcome the pleasure of smoking. Or the fear of losing a lover if he can't stand smokers.

How do we contribute to our lack of will?

There are factors that can increase our lack of will, even if we are not inclined to it - and especially if we are. For example, hunger. The brain needs glucose to function. If you are hungry, the body tries to maintain vital functions and first of all turns off the higher departments that have arisen in evolution recently, and it remains to be seen whether they contribute to survival or vice versa. In particular, the activity of the prefrontal cortex decreases, and it is this department that is responsible for resisting emotional impulses. Therefore, when people are hungry, they are more prone to impulsive actions. So before important events where you need to use willpower - say, a conversation with your boss about a salary - it makes sense to have a snack.

Another factor is stress. This is not a boring word from glossy magazines, but a very specific physiological mechanism, the task of which was to save our ancestors from extreme influences and drastic changes. environment. The stress mechanism kicks in when we need to react quickly. Therefore, under stress, all “side” functions are also turned off, only the most necessary at the moment remain. Blood rushes to the muscles, adrenaline is produced, endurance increases, sensitivity to pain decreases. The activity of the slow higher parts of the brain is dulled, the reins of government are given to the fast and powerful departments responsible for emotions. Accordingly, in a stressful situation, we become more prone to impulsive behavior.

Can a weak-willed person be forced to do something?

Weak people have weak intrinsic motivation, since it is determined by the very “volitional” neurotransmitters that do not work well for citizens prone to impulsive behavior. But extrinsic motivation always works. And the correct use of the prefrontal cortex is to artificially create an external compulsion for yourself to do what you need, but you do not want - or, conversely, not to do what is pleasant, but harmful. This is much smarter than waiting for some suitable force majeure to force you to break away from your favorite temptations. Therefore, it is better to buy a fitness club not a long-term subscription - according to statistics, about 70% of people use a maximum of two or three classes from it, but more expensive individual workouts. When you have a commitment not only to yourself, but also to the coach who is already waiting in the gym, it is not so easy to miss a session. For the same reason, people are much more effective in losing weight in the company of a wife, husband, or friends: external pressure from a company or partner is added to weak internal motivation. Moreover, it does not have to be direct: it is enough to be unwilling to be worse than others, competitiveness, and sometimes support. Such self-organized external coercion is much more pleasant than a sudden blow of fate.

The Cure, Pusha-T, Basta, Gruppa Skryptonite, Mura Masa, Eighteen - and this is just the beginning.

Building willpower is often compared to going to the gym. It seems like we develop willpower in the same way as in the gym.
Today we train willpower, tomorrow we train it, and the day after tomorrow it becomes much stronger.

In many ways, this analogy works. This analogy makes it much easier to understand what needs to be done and why some people lack persistence. A weak will is just an untrained will.

Of course, something, as always, depends on innate qualities, something on the usual way of life. But I think that a person who purposefully trains his perseverance will be able to achieve much more than a person who just has good inclinations, but he does not specifically train.

However, any analogy works up to a certain limit. So it is with the analogy in the development of muscles and willpower. What is the difference between muscle training and willpower training?

The first difference is in the frequency of training..

For those who are just starting to go to the gym and pull dumbbells or do something else, it is simply contraindicated to train more than 3 times a week. If
train more often, then the body simply will not have time to recover. And if there is no recovery, then an overload of the body is inevitable, injuries are possible, complete
no results or insignificant results from the training.

Perseverance needs to be trained much more often. Training 3 times a week will give you many times less result than daily training, if at all it will give you something significant.

This principle of developing perseverance is very important and I ask you to pay close attention to it. Once again, the lack of results in the development of perseverance is usually associated not with some kind of difficulty in this matter, but with the fact that you make gross mistakes. I constantly remind you of these gross mistakes several times.

Sincerely, Rashid Kirranov.

Translation of an important article filled with scientific data on self-control - or rather, the exaggeration of its power and importance. Scientists are inclined to believe that the term “self-control” should be completely abandoned.

Let's start from the very beginning: the first crime of mankind was the result of a lack of self-control. Eve was forbidden to taste the apple, but the temptation was so great - the fruit not only looked tempting, but also gave wisdom, who can resist? The moral of the biblical parable is this: if willpower is not enough to refrain from a moral offense, then you are a sinner and deserve punishment.

But modern psychologists are in no hurry to blame Eve: a person - both at the dawn of time and now - is not particularly able to resist temptations.

“When you struggle with yourself, giving up something, you end up with little good,” says Kentaro Fujita, a psychologist who conducts self-control research at Ohio University. And he is not alone - a number of scientists also suggest not to reproach yourself when you succumb to temptations.

“Unfortunately, our self-control is not as good as it was supposed to be,” says Brian Galla, a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh.

The discovery seems to be not very impressive, but in reality it has a huge practical meaning: do not blame yourself when the steel will does not help to resist the temptation. We need to rethink how we deal with, for example, the obesity epidemic. A recent nationwide survey by the University of Chicago found that 75% of Americans cited lack of self-control as the biggest barrier to weight loss.

If we stop praising the power of the will, then perhaps we will think about how to reduce the power of temptation? And to develop new techniques with which people will be able to lose weight, spending less effort.

Self-control research

Imagine that you decide to cut back on sugar a bit and somehow find yourself in front of a plate of cakes. Scientists believe that the dish has already won.

“Most of us think of self-control as a fight between an angel and a devil perched on our shoulders,” explains Fujita. “And we think that in people with the strongest will, the angel always wins. But the truth is that such people often do not have the confrontation itself.

This idea arose from the results of a 2011 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The 205 participants in Germany wore a gadget for a week that occasionally asked them what temptations they were currently experiencing (and how well they were resisting them).

The results were paradoxical: it turned out that people with the best self-control (who in surveys say they can resist temptation) are simply less likely to experience temptations. In short, people who boast of their willpower rarely actually need to use it.

Canadian psychologists Marina Milyavskaya and Michael Inzlicht recently replicated and extended this experiment, observing 159 McGill University students for a week. If resisting temptation is a blessing, then the harder we try, the more we achieve? The results of the work, published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, say otherwise.

Students who put more effort into self-control did not succeed in achieving their goals. And the most successful were others who were simply less likely to experience temptations..

It is interesting that the first ones wasted their energy: they did not achieve their assigned goals, and they were exhausted from the very attempts to resist temptations.

“It is generally accepted that the ability to limit oneself is useful and brings the desired results,” says Marina Milyavskaya, a professor at Carleton University, “however, our work shows that in the long term this is not the case.”

Can we learn something from the "self-control" lucky ones?

So what are these superhumans, less often tempted by forbidden fruits? And can we learn something from them for our own benefit? New discoveries of science say we can:

1. People with the best self-control actually enjoy what others resist, like healthy eating, studying, or exercising. For them, this is not a routine at all, but a joy.

“I want-goals” are much easier to achieve than “necessary-goals”, ”says Milyavskaya. “When you strive for what you truly want, there are fewer outside temptations. You move towards such a goal, spending less effort on self-control.

If you started running because you “need” to improve your form, and did not find anything pleasant in it, then you are unlikely to achieve anything. Choose physical activity that you enjoy, not repulsive.

2. People with the best self-control have developed good habits.

In 2015, psychologists Brian Galla and Angela Duckworth reviewed six studies published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, finding that the strongest of over 2,000 participants also had more good habits- regular exercise, healthy eating, sleep, etc.

“Their lives were so organized that they avoided a lot of situations where they needed to show willpower,” Galla explains. And self-organization is a learned skill. If you do something regularly - like exercising or meditating - then it will be easier for you to achieve your goals. Not at all because of the incredible willpower, but because the usual regimen helps.

Try this trick to get out of bed faster in the morning: set your alarm on the other side of the room. A simple trick that does not require any self-control.

You've probably heard of Walter Michel's famous "marshmallow test" where children were asked to eat one marshmallow right away or two later. However, as we now believe, the most resilient may not have resisted temptation at all: they may have refrained through critical thinking.

“Michelle has repeatedly found that an important factor in self-control is the ability to change the attitude towards an object or action that you need to refuse,” from an article in the New Yorker. This means that the child could refuse the first marshmallow simply by stopping thinking about it or imagining something else instead.

Fujita explains: “People who diet lightly simply don’t go as far as buying a cupcake: they either change their route so as not to see the window of a candy store, or – if a tempting treat catches their eye – they are able to see the minuses in it, not the pluses. They tend to have a withdrawal reaction rather than an imminent attraction to the forbidden fruit.”

3. Some simply have fewer temptations.

Yet our predispositions are partly determined by genes. Some people have a stronger appetite than others. Someone is too gambling, someone is a shopaholic. The most conscientious people (this character trait also depends on genetics) are more likely to be more diligent students and lead healthy lifestyle life. In terms of self-control, of course, they won the genetic lottery.

4. Controlling yourself is easier for the rich

When Michel tempted children from poor families with marshmallows, he identified a clear trend: it was more difficult for them to refuse the offered treat.

Elliot Berkman, who is a neuroscientist at the University of Oregon, gives this explanation: people who grew up in poverty do not choose a bird in their hands because of a lack of self-control. They are accustomed to thinking in the short term, as their future is more nebulous than that of the rich.

Finding new ways of self-control

Recent research suggests that eating an extra piece of cake is not a lack of willpower. This is a natural behavior if you are hungry and the cake is in front of you. “Self-control is not some moral muscle that we can pump up,” Galla explains. It's just a choice - and to make your choice more intelligent, you need to change the environment and develop certain skills in yourself.

Berkman generally believes that the term "self-control" should be abandoned.. The old theory of willpower, called "ego depletion", is now under intense criticism because it is not confirmed.

New research has yet to reveal whether it is actually possible to teach people certain skills to help them control themselves. But, at least, scientists have reached a new, more promising direction.

Berkman is testing the idea of ​​“motivational lifting” in his lab: study participants write an essay about how achieving their goal (for example, losing weight) helps with the main life values. And then Berkman regularly sends them messages, reminding them of the importance of their goals, which increases motivation. “For now, we are only collecting data, so I can’t say how successful it is.”

Another solution is “adding pleasure”: physical activity is combined with something pleasant. For example, participants in one study exercised more enthusiastically by listening to the Hunger Games audiobook in the gym.

The researchers are very excited: “Perhaps we are in for a big breakthrough in discoveries and the development of new strategies that we have not thought about before,” says Galla. He and others are moving forward with the old “just say no” approach and are looking for ways to increase motivation through mobile apps and other new technologies.

This does not mean at all that one should remain weak-willed and not make any attempts to limit oneself. But let this be the very last resort to give up something bad.

“Although the angel on our shoulder often loses the fight, he still has a chance to win,” says Fujita.

A person must be strong not only externally, but also internally. And what is the inner strength of a person, if not his will? In this article we will talk about what the will is for and what are the ways to train it.

Will is the ability of a person to consciously control his actions and emotions, to neglect lower values ​​in favor of higher ones, to create his own system of values. Considering the volitional potential of a person, it can be said with confidence that its basis consists of two components: and efforts aimed at achieving it. It is for this reason that in this matter it is very important for a person to train his willpower. Each person will have a different motivation, but the most common reasons are:

• Increase self-esteem
• Achieving high performance results
• Status and respect of other people
• Taking control of your life
• Success with the opposite sex
• Getting rid of bad habits
• Increasing your own organization
• Increasing stress resistance and own competitiveness
• Improving mood and well-being
• Improving Communication Skills

These are the main reasons why people start training their willpower. But, as already mentioned, you may have your own motives. In addition, it is important to understand once and for all for yourself that the will can be trained, because. is a kind of psychological muscle of a person. And this means that with appropriate loads, it will grow and become stronger. What needs to be done for this?

The answer to this question can be due to the fact that at present a huge number of scientists around the world are conducting a wide variety of studies on this subject. And based on their results, certain strategies and techniques have already been created that allow a person to strengthen his willpower and make it stronger. We'll look at some of these exercises below.

special diet

This exercise implies the observance of a special diet, which includes 4-5 meals per day. You need to eat moderately, but regularly, so that there is no feeling of hunger. This allows you to maintain your body in an optimal mode of functioning, eliminates the habit of eating low-quality food when you have to, and constantly reminds you that you are training your willpower. But keep in mind that this diet should consist exclusively of natural and high-quality products. It will come in handy here, such as vegetarianism, a raw food diet, etc.

Changing habits

Each person probably has some bad habits that it would not hurt to get rid of. Therefore, for training willpower is great. You can stop drinking beer on weekends, say no to fast food, etc. Analyze your inclinations and habits, find what is worth giving up and do it as soon as possible.

Application of temptation

This exercise is quite radical, but great for those who decide to take on their willpower to the fullest. The meaning of the exercise is that if you, for example, decide to quit smoking, you should always have a pack of cigarettes on hand, which you can use at any time. But no matter how much you want to do it, you should never do it. Keep in mind that your temptation must be present in its natural form, i.e. no empty packs, pictures of packs, photos of people smoking, etc.

Muscle tension

Scientists from Singapore have revealed one very interesting relationship: when the muscles of the body are tensed, willpower is also activated. Applying this knowledge is very simple: when you feel some kind of temptation or, on the contrary, cannot do something, and you understand that your willpower is not strong enough, tighten any muscles: clench your fists tightly, tighten your biceps or abs. Dealing with temptation or inaction will immediately become easier. And the regular performance of such manipulations forms a stable connection between your psyche and body - over time, in order to maximize your willpower, you only need to perform the usual action.

good deeds

Switching attention

This exercise is the opposite of applying temptation. Here, at any moment when you feel that you are overcome by an irrepressible desire to do something (talk again about bad habits) or, for example, instead of an important thing to do something meaningless, you need to immediately switch to another activity that is radically different from what you would like to do. After a while, this desire will disappear, because. your brain and attention will be busy with completely different work.

Creating New Habits

This exercise allows you to form new positive habits. The fact is that a habit is an action that is performed unconsciously. But in order to, you need to purposefully perform this action for some time. It engages your attention and also forces you to follow. decision even when you don't want to follow it. You can start with the simplest: start washing the dishes with your left hand, put the keys to the house strictly in a certain place, brush your teeth every time after eating, etc. Although it is important not what exactly you are doing, but that you are doing it no matter what and always remember this.

Sleeping mode

Start sticking. For example, go to bed no later than 12 noon and get up no later than 6 am. This will teach you to be more disciplined and responsible person, will motivate you to complete all tasks at a strictly specified time, wean you from postponing important things for later. In addition, getting up early is an excellent means of developing willpower. this is exactly the action that you don’t want to do in the morning more than anything in the world.

Communication control

This exercise is also called "volitional communication." It is quite simple to perform it: in the process of interacting with other people, always try to control your emotions, everything that you say, your facial expressions and gestures. You need to ensure that absolutely all of your manifestations can be manifested or not manifested only by your volitional effort. Keep in mind that it is much more difficult to remember to stick to willful communication. To always remember this, come up with a special reminder for yourself - something that will attract your attention and make you remember. For example, a cross drawn with a pen on a hand, some kind of ridiculous little thing in a pocket, etc.

Destruction of laziness

Another powerful way to train willpower. It lies in the fact that if you have some things that you don’t want to do at all, you need to start doing them immediately, without putting off even a minute for later. If you don’t want to walk the dog, go for a walk, if you don’t want to prepare a report, sit down and cook, if you don’t want to go for a run, put on your sports uniform, sneakers and go! The huge advantage of this exercise is that in addition to training willpower, it will increase your personal productivity, as well as increase the amount of free time.

All of these exercises are pretty easy to do. But people often make one serious mistake, which in 2-3 days reduces all their undertakings to zero - they take on everything at once. So a man made a decision to train his willpower and decided: “I will get up at 6 in the morning, quit smoking, begin to tie my shoelaces with my left hand, put a towel in the second locker from the bottom, and I will also go to church every day and donate 50 rubles, and also I will always be conscious,” and so on and so forth. You don't need to do this, because all this, firstly, will mix up in a heap and create confusion in the head and, secondly, this is too much effort on oneself and one's will, which not everyone is ready to endure. Therefore, it is recommended to perform all the exercises in sequence: they chose one thing, maximum two, and began to practice little by little. A month passed - they took up another exercise. The result may not be felt immediately, but your progress will be stable, and your will strong and strong. Looking at yourself in a year, you will see huge difference between the "past" and the "present".

Train your will systematically and regularly, without postponing anything for later. Be prepared for the fact that serious and painstaking work on yourself awaits you. And in this work every little thing is important. And remember one more thing good rule: first you work for your will, then your will will work for you!

You can learn more about willpower, self-motivation and mental self-regulation in the course. Join now!

We will be glad to know your opinion on the read article, as well as any additions on the topic of willpower training.

I think it's impossible to tell. Especially about the will, because the will is something very specific. Its manifestations are mysterious. There is no way to explain how to use it, you can only see the results. They are stunning. Probably, first of all, you need to realize that the will can be developed. The warrior knows this and waits patiently. You do not realize that your expectation is the expectation of the will. And this is your mistake. My benefactor told me that a warrior knows what he is waiting for and knows what he is waiting for. You know what you're waiting for. But even though you've been hanging around here for years, you still haven't figured out exactly what you're waiting for.

It is very difficult, almost impossible for the average, ordinary person to know what he is waiting for. For the warrior, however, this problem does not exist. He knows that his expectation is the expectation of the will.

Can you tell me clearly what will is? Is it an aspiration, like Lucio's dream of getting a motorcycle?

No, don Juan said softly and chuckled. This is not will. Lucio simply indulges his desires and his weakness. Will is something else. Will is something extremely pure, powerful that directs our actions. The will is what allows a person to win the battle, being doomed to defeat. “Then perhaps will is what we call courage?”

No, courage is different. Courageous people are dependent. They are noble, from year to year surrounded by a crowd of people who exalt them and admire them. But almost none of the courageous people has the will. They are fearless, capable of very bold, but ordinary, actions that do not go beyond common sense. Most courageous people inspire fear, they are afraid. But manifestations of the will refer to achievements that do not fit into any framework of our ordinary reality, amazing actions that go beyond common sense.

Will is self-control?

We can say that this is one of the types of control.

Do you think I can train my will, for example, by giving up something?

For example, from asking questions,” don Juan quipped.

At the same time, his tone was so corrosive that I even stopped writing and looked up at him. We both laughed. - No. Denying himself something, a person indulges himself, following the lead of pride or even narcissism. I don't recommend this kind of nonsense. Therefore, I allow you to ask - whatever you want. If I demanded that you stop asking questions, you might hurt your will by trying to comply with my demand. Self-restraint is the worst and most vicious kind of self-indulgence. By doing this, we force ourselves to believe that we are accomplishing something significant, almost a feat, but in reality we only go deeper into narcissism, giving food to vanity and feeling own importance. Giving up something or forcing yourself to stop doing something is not a manifestation of the will. If, for example, you force yourself to stop asking questions, this action will have nothing to do with the will. Will is energy, force, an independent acting unit. It requires proper management and configuration, which takes time. I know this, so I'm calm about you. When I was the same age as you are now, I was no less impulsive than you. But it's gone. The will does not care about our weaknesses, it works no matter what. Yours, for example, is already beginning to open the gap.

What light are you talking about?

We have a gap, like a fontanel on a baby's head. Only the fontanel closes over time, and this gap - on the contrary, as the will develops in a person, it becomes larger.

Where is he located?

Where the luminous fibers come from,” he said, pointing to my abdominal cavity.

What is it for?

Through this hole, like an arrow, the will is shot.

Is the will material?

No. I just said it so you can understand. What the magician calls will is the power within ourselves. It is not a thought, not an object, not a desire. To stop asking questions does not mean to use the will, because for this you need to think and want. The will is what makes you win when your mind tells you that you are defeated. Will is what makes you invulnerable. The will is what allows the magician to pass through the wall, to overcome a huge distance, to go to the moon, if he so desires.

I didn't want to ask any more. I was tired and, moreover, nervous, because I was afraid that don Juan would ask me to leave.

Let's go to the hills,” he said suddenly and stood up. On the way, he started talking about the will again, chuckling at the fact that I couldn't write it down as I walked.

He described the will as a force that was the true link between the world and people. Don Juan approached the definition of the world very carefully, saying that the world is what we perceive, regardless of the way we choose to perceive it. Don Juan believed that "perception of the world" is accompanied by a process of "grasping", that is, a deep awareness of what appeared before us and was perceived. Such a "complex" perception is carried out by the senses and will.

I asked him if the will is not what is sometimes called the "sixth sense." He replied that it was rather a connection between us and the perceived world.

I suggested stopping to write it all down. But he laughed and kept walking.

He never sent me to Los Angeles that evening. And the next morning, at breakfast, he himself continued talking about the will.

That which among men is customarily called will is nothing more than stubbornness and firmness of character, he said. outside world. It comes out through the belly, right from here, where the luminous fibers are.

He rubbed his navel, indicating the location.

I say she's getting out of here because that's how it feels.

Why do you call it will?

I don't call it at all. But my benefactor called it will, and all men of knowledge call it that. - Yesterday you said that the world can be perceived both by feelings and by will. What does this mean?

An ordinary person "grasps" what is in the world with the help of hands, eyes or ears. The magician can "grasp" also with the help of the will. I cannot describe to you how it is done, but you yourself, for example, cannot describe to me how you hear. I happen to be able to hear too, so we can talk about what we hear but not how we hear. The magician uses his will to sense the world. But this sensation is not like auditory perception. When we look at the world or when we listen to it, we get the feeling that it is outside of us and that it is real. As we experience the world with our will, we learn that it is not as "outside of us" or as "real" as we think.

Will is the same as vision?- No. Will is power, energy. Vision- this is not a force, but a way of penetrating the essence of things. The magician may have a very strong will, but he still may not see, which means that only a man of knowledge perceives the world with his feelings, his will and his vision.

Will is not a concept, don Juan said.

Those were his first words to me that day.

He was silent for a long time, and then continued:

You and I are very different. Our characters are different. You are naturally more violent than I am. At your age, I was not aggressive, moreover, I was timid. You, on the contrary, are similar to my benefactor in this. He would be perfect for you as a teacher. It was a great magician, but he did not see. Not like me, not like Genaro. I navigate the world and live by vision. My benefactor had to live like a warrior. The seer should not live like a warrior or like someone else, he does not need it. He sees, therefore, for him everything in the world appears in the guise of his true essence, properly directing his life. But given your nature, I must tell you that you may never learn to see. In this case, you will have to be a warrior all your life.

My benefactor said: having embarked on the path of knowledge, a person gradually realizes that ordinary life is forever behind him, that knowledge is terrible thing, and the means of the ordinary world can no longer protect him. Therefore, in order to survive, you need to live in a new way. And the first thing to do on this path is to want to become a warrior. An important decision and an important step. The path of knowledge leaves no choice - only a warrior can follow it.

By the time a person realizes the terrifying nature of knowledge, he also realizes that death on this path is a faithful companion, an irreplaceable partner who is always there. Death is the main factor that turns knowledge into energy, into real power. Everything ends with the touch of death, and everything that it touches becomes power.

Therefore, in order to become a warrior, a person must first of all be fully aware of his own death. But simple worry about the possibility of dying does nothing, it only forces one to close in on oneself. Therefore detachment is needed. Then the idea of ​​the inevitability of death does not turn into a mania, but becomes indifferent.

Becoming a hermit means indulging yourself, your weakness. The hermit does not renounce, he forcibly drives himself into the desert, forcing seclusion, or flees from a woman, difficulties, believing that this will save him from the destructive action of the forces of life and fate. But this is self-deception. Only the thought of death can give a person enough detachment to force himself to do anything, as well as not to refuse anything. But this is not a passionate thirst, but a silent passion that a warrior has for life and everything that is in it. He knows that death follows him on his heels and will not let him cling to anything, so he tries everything without being attached to anything. The detached warrior knows that it is impossible to ward off death, and knows that he has only one support - the power of his decisions. He must be, so to speak, the master of his choice. He must fully understand that he himself is entirely responsible for his choice and that if he once made it, then he has no more time for regrets or reproaches against himself. His decisions are final simply because his death doesn't give him time to get attached to anything.

And thus, with the awareness of his death, his detachment and the strength of his decisions, the warrior marks his life strategically. The knowledge of his death guides him, makes him detached and silently suffering, and the strength of his final decisions makes him able to choose without regrets, and what he chooses is strategically always the best. Therefore, he does everything with taste and passionate efficiency.

When a person behaves in this way, it can safely be said that he is a warrior and that he has reached his patience.

When a warrior has reached patience, he is on his way to his water. He knows how to wait. His death sits beside him on his mat. They are friends. Death cryptically advises him on how to vary circumstances and how to live strategically. And the warrior is waiting. I would say that a warrior learns without any haste, because he knows that he is waiting for his will. One day he will succeed in doing something that is usually quite impossible to do. He may not even notice his unusual act. But as he continues to do unusual things, or as unusual things continue to happen to him, he becomes conscious of the manifestation of some power emanating from his body. At first it is like an itch on the abdomen or a burning sensation that cannot be soothed. Then it becomes a pain, a great inconvenience. Sometimes the pain and discomfort is so great that the warrior has convulsions for a month. The stronger the convulsions, the better for him. Great will is always preceded by great pain.

As the convulsions subside, the warrior notices that he has a strange feeling about things. He notices that he can, in fact, touch everything he wants with the feeling that comes from his body - from a point located in the navel area. This feeling is will, and when he is able to be embraced by it, one can safely say that the warrior is a magician and that he has achieved will.

My benefactor was a mage with great powers,” he continued. He was a warrior to the core. His will was indeed his most marvelous accomplishment. But one can go even further. Man can learn to see. Once he has learned to see, he no longer needs to be either a warrior or a mage. Having become a seer, a person becomes everything, having become nothing. It seems to disappear, and at the same time it remains. In principle, he can get everything he wants, and achieve everything, no matter what he aspires to. But he does not want anything, and instead of having fun playing ordinary people like mindless toys, he dissolves among them, sharing their stupidity. The only difference is that the seer controls his stupidity, and a common person- No. Becoming a seer, a person loses interest in his fellow man. The vision allows him to let go of everything he knew before.

It makes me shudder just thinking about letting go of everything I know,” I said. - You must be joking! You should be shivering not from this thought, but from the fact that you have nothing ahead of you except the routine repetition of the same actions throughout your life. Imagine a man who grows grain year after year, and so on until his strength fails him and he falls like a mangy old dog. All his thoughts and feelings, everything that is the best in him, has been sacrificed to one thing - the extraction of food, the production of food. A pointless sacrifice, a waste of time - to live to eat, and eat to live, and again live to eat, and so on - until death. Amusements invented by people, no matter how sophisticated they are, are just pathetic attempts to forget themselves, without going beyond the vicious circle - to eat to live, and live to eat ... As for me, it cannot be worse than loss!

We are people, and our destiny, our destiny is to learn for the sake of discovering more and more incomprehensible worlds.

What, the new worlds are a reality? I asked incredulously.

Silly you! We are still only at the very beginning of the journey. Vision is available only to a flawless warrior. Temper your spirit and become one. Then, having learned to see, you will know that unknown worlds there is no number and that they are all here, in front of them.