Series:
Essay #8:
Synopsis:
Ends & Means
Habitual Free-Will
I have free-will over who I want to become, and this, my choice of highest good, controls all my other choices, because the end controls the means
Free-will is for making choices that matter. I remember as a kid we’d hear the ice-cream truck jingle, run inside and beg for money, then go running down the street after the truck. It was summertime and the blacktop burned. It mattered whether I chose a fudgsicle or an ice cream sandwich. Even though the truck would be back tomorrow or the next day, I lived in the right now, and if I chose wrong, I wasn’t getting a second chance ever. That choice mattered, and that’s the exercise of free-will.
As an adult, choosing between maple walnut or mocha chip isn’t an act of free-will. It doesn’t matter… except if my diet permits one cheat day per month, and today is it! Now the choice matters because if I get the mocha chip and it doesn’t satisfy, I either wait a month for my next chance, or I break my diet. I worry that the mocha chip won’t be incredible and my mind jumps down the chain: get a second cone with maple walnut --> break my diet --> give up on health and attractiveness --> let myself down --> become a loser again.
My mind jumps all the way to the end-game, because every choice is nested within a higher-level choice until I reach the final choice: who will I become? My act of free-will isn’t between maple walnut and mocha chip, rather, it’s between staying on the path or reverting to that person I don’t want to be again. If I’m going for that second cone and the choice is between flavors, that means I’ve already chosen to break my diet, which means I’ve chosen a path.
I have free-will over who I want to become. The rest is ancillary choice, like when to wake up, what to wear, what to eat, what to watch on TV. All these ancillary choices are subsumed within higher ends, for example, I want to be responsible to my family so I work, which means I wake up at 6am, put on my work clothes, pack a lunch to save money, and watch a little TV at night to unwind before I sleep and start it all over again tomorrow 6am. Who I want to become determines how I live, which determines my daily habits, which determines the choices I make.
It’s the same when my son, age 14, got in trouble with his friends at school for stuffing paper down the toilet. I asked him, “why did you do that, you idiot?” then I asked, “why do you choose to hang with them?” A young person’s fundamental choice is his friends, so I needed to talk with my son about the meaning of that choice. It’s that higher choice that explained the toilet hijinks.
Think of Jocko Willink’s discipline = freedom. Jocko's highest choice, his ultimate end, was to become the best Navy SEAL he could be. Jocko is retired from the SEALs now
and he has a new career, but the end still seems to govern. It controls when he wakes up, what he eats, the advice he gives, everything. Jocko’s life flows transparently from his highest choice, for example, Jocko doesn't choose to exercise hard everyday. For Jocko, exercise is habit; he has an exercise schedule and that’s that (Jocko wakes up everyday at 4:30am
and tweets a photo of his watch). Jocko doesn’t eat white sugar and that’s that. I imagine something like the following exchange between Jocko and Echo Charles, his cohort on the Jocko Podcast. Jocko remarks that he cut sugar out of his diet because it negatively affects athletic performance. Echo replies that, yes, technically speaking, cutting out sugar is good but… Echo likes his ice cream and so do his young daughters, so it’s not that easy. Jocko says of course it’s easy, just do it.
Discipline comes easy for Jocko because he knows his ultimate end and his highest good. That’s his secret. Jocko’s end controls the means: he’s created habits to handle most of daily life in accordance with his end. Jocko doesn’t choose whether or not to eat the delicious donut that’s on the table mere inches from his hand. Maybe Jocko’s habits are so strong that he doesn’t even see that delectable donut calling his name. Years of training have made the donut into an “inedible thing.” And once Jocko stops choosing yes/no on donuts, his bandwidth increases for the decisions that really matter. Discipline = freedom. He’s free to make the big choices because he freed himself from the petty ones.
That’s why discipline = freedom = less choice = more energy. I recognize my highest good and I accept the discipline that it brings to my life. Discipline builds good habits, and the habits remove petty choice, which gives me energy to live even tighter to my highest good. It feels great to clear out all that underbrush of petty choice! This is how I become the best me. It's also why virtue is so enjoyable to those who practice it.
Leon Kass said that a good habit is an acquired freedom. It’s all about habits when living to my highest good. There are countless decisions in a day, so I need an automatic choice-maker, which is what a habit is. If I habitually go to bed early and wake up early, that’ll automatically carry me everyday, leaving only that once-in-a-while Friday night when I hang with my buddies and sleep in Saturday morning. When operating at my best, I don’t make choices; instead my good habits do what’s best without me giving thought to it.
There it is. A well-ordered person doesn’t make little choices because he’s already relegated them to habit; and for the big choices that remain, his highest good is the standard by which he judges them. You have freedom to find your highest good, then train the habits that embody it, which frees you up to get even closer to your highest good. You go from strength to strength.
Essays in this Series, Ends & Means: