Don't let 'I want' defeat 'I will' and 'I won't

Time magazine runs the same kind of article at least once a year - a testament to Americans' endless battle with self-control. But I have seen these themes deftly treated in a very different format: in Dallas Willard's 2002 book, Renovation of the Heart.

Willard is not a brain scientist but a professor of philosophy at USC.

His insights, however, fit well with what current research is revealing.

Kluger quotes Kelly McGonigal of Stanford, author of The Willpower Instinct as saying, "Our brains operate at three levels: I will, I won't, I want. For many of us, the I-want part wins" - even when that means compromising our own well-being.

Willard finds the triumph of "I want" over "I will" and "I won't" in, of all places, the local church, citing incidences of adultery, greed, lying and improper financial acts. This illustrates, he writes, "the extent to which sin, in a form everyone plainly recognizes as such, undermines even the efforts of Christ's own people."

But Willard, like the researchers quoted in the Time article, sees reasons for hope. He points to a reliable pattern for personal transformation that makes use of some of the same practices suggested by today's leading researchers on the brain.

Personal transformation, says Willard, must include a clear vision of what one desires to be and do in the future.

"If the vision is clear and strong," he writes, "it will very likely pull everything else required along with it."

Researchers believe this "future vision" can serve to help people exercise self-control. Psychologist Hal Ersner-Hershfield shows subjects pictures of themselves transformed by aging software to look 30 years older. His research suggests that people who connect to their future selves are more likely to engage in selfenriching behaviors.

Psychologists refer to this as "future-self continuity," a vision of tomorrow that informs today's decisions. When this is missing, as Kluger illustrates with comedic material from Jerry Seinfeld, problems ensue: "Tonight Guy can go drinking as late as he wants, because getting up in the morning is Tomorrow Guy's problem."

The ancient proverb says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish."

But it is also true that where there is no vision, self-control perishes.

The Time article sums it up this way: "The closer you feel to the you of tomorrow, the better you'll do at planning for that faraway self."

This is surely the territory where faith and hope thrive. The hope that I may be a Jesuslike person tomorrow - experiencing love and peace, no matter what the circumstances - has the potential to reinforce positive choices today.

Both Willard and the latest research insist that willpower cannot go it alone. The intentional formation of new habits is critical to long-term change. Kluger cites New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg's claim that more than 40 percent of the actions we perform are the result of habit, not choice.

The ability to form habits is a great gift.

Without it, we could not drive a car, type a letter or set the DVR. Habits often serve our interests, but they can also lock us into behaviors that frustrate our personal development, that "work against what we consciously desire" (Duhigg).

That's why, as Willard writes, "The proper retraining and nurturing of the body is absolutely essential "And, research suggests, entirely possible, as long as there is a clear vision of a desired future and an honest intention to get there.

Shayne Looper is the pastor at the Lockwood Community Church. He can be reached at salooper@frontier.com. His column appears each Saturday.