Personal Will: Between Idea and Reality

How far does personal will really take us?

The concept of personal will is a very attractive one. It presents us with the reassuring idea that we are in control of our destiny, that we can do anything we want to — if only we put our mind to it.

It presents us with an absolutist perception of the individual, of each one of us as a sovereign, in total control of everything internal and external. It elevates and magnifies what separates us the most from all the other animals we share the world with — the ability to plan and adjust our own behaviour outside of our natural prerogatives; eating, sleeping, reproducing.

Idea and Reality

The concept of will plays an important role in political and individualistic or existentialist philosophy. Without Will, nothing can be achieved or changed. In other words, Will is what moves something from the abstract realm of idealism to the material world. Will is idea materialized, or rather, materializing.

But this is not where it ends, the relationship does not flow in one direction. Ideas find themselves brushing up against the material conditions of our world, against reality, and are then either adjusted or altogether abandoned.

With this in mind, Will seems to play a much less prominent role than previously described, revealing a more fluid interaction between the individual and their environment. Will, either becomes synonymous with perseverance or, mutates into a romanticized notion that has more to do with power and disciplining the environment — a sort of forcing the world to bend to our Will.

The Limits of Will

A romanticized outlook of Will and, in turn, how much we believe we control can lead to catastrophic results.

In business circles, the concept of will takes the form of the “Hustle” and motivational coaches always have a message of doubling down even when stepping back from a situation and reassessing could be a much healthier and even more productive option.

There are also areas where our Will simply holds no currency. Take our interaction with others. Much has been said here about ‘how to win friends and influence people’, yet some people cannot be influenced or won over. Furthermore, there is a discussion that needs to be had of the real benefits of winning over and influencing people or friends by way of manipulation or a distortion of the self.

But also, what if your attempt to win friends and influence people is met with rejection? Is this a judgment on your lack of Will? Should you Will something harder? and at what stage does that cross the line into coercive action?

This is an issue that arrises almost everytime we speak of romance and wooing a person of interest into your life where, at times, the focus on willing someone to become romantically interested in you is so intense that how one should Will someone else into their lives becomes a more important subject of discussion than whether or not that person is even interested. Love and romance take on a mutated form more concerned with control than mutual interest.

Political Change

The limits of Will, especially individual Will, can also be found in a more macro context when looked at through a political lens. For a long time, same-sex couples could not be married no matter how hard the Willed it.

The idea of personal Will in this context seems absurd. As does the concept that ideas alone can change the factors limiting personal behaviour eg. all we need to do is spread the idea that same-sex marriage should be legal and it will become so.

Here we need to shift our perception from personal will to political will where a group of individuals collectively and actively seek to transform their environment so they can individually benefit from a change that cannot be achieved with Individual will alone. Where the transformation from idea to material cannot happen on an individual level.

Personal Will, Group Will, and Faux Will

In his much appreciated Serenity Prayer, American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr makes an inadvertent nod to the role of Will in our life. Paradoxically, he only acknowledges the role of individual will assuming that outside of it, nothing else exists.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

This analysis is not too far from our current day motivational ideology. Except that today, with our cultish admiration of individuality, the concept of Will has been fantasised to include those things that cannot be changed by Will alone.

In this case, Niebuhr’s prayer stands superior. Yet, it remains rather static in its assumption that the things which cannot be changed by individual Will cannot be changed by political or group Will — a critique often levied against religious institutions. Wisdom then is not only found in being able to identify where individual will works, but also where its limits are in an individual and social/political context; and when one must transition their thinking from the idea of individual will to political will.