Seduced by Self-Will
tl;dr: Self-will promises control but often leads to quiet despair. Releasing the illusion of control doesn’t mean giving up. It opens the possibility of a different kind of hope. Hope that can be practiced no matter what. A way of living with integrity in a world that offers us no guarantees.
Before we continue, I want to bring your attention back to two Rite of Passage Offerings we are cooking up for 2026. We are planning exploratory calls the week of February 1. Register to express your interest:
I also want to bring your attention to Tuesday’s (my wife, obsession and love of many lifetimes NOT the day of the week!) latest article, a very insightful reframe of what it means to “lose” relationships as we grow spiritually:
Back to our regularly scheduled programming…
Seduced by Self-Will
Lately, I’ve been examining how easily my quest for discipline and self-improvement turns into an obsession with self-will.
A sincere desire to do all the practices that help me to live well, becomes the nagging feeling that if something feels off, it must be because I’m not trying hard enough. I start to recriminate myself for:
Not being disciplined enough.
Not being focused enough.
Not doing the practices consistently enough.
It feels like a lifetime of self-torture. It is an exhausting posture. And I’m beginning to discover the wisdom of acknowledging my own powerlessness.
Powerlessness is an unsettling recognition. But it is strangely liberating.
Especially in these times, when giving in to despair can masquerade as “being realistic.” When withdrawal can pass for wisdom. What I’m practicing instead can’t quite be called optimism. It’s something I’m still learning to name.
It is a refusal to give myself over entirely to despair. Even when outcomes look dire, and the good is far from guaranteed.
Two weeks ago I wrote about the distinction between virtue and optimization. I wrote as someone who is continually falling short of my own obsession with optimizing for well-being.
That same pattern is alive for me right now.
We are about to wrap up BOOST Your Practice. Our beautiful yearly ritual for coming into alignment with the Creative Life Force. I am proud of this well loved offering, it reflects my genuine longing for discipline. For consistency with practices that genuinely matter to me. Waking early. Meditating. Exercising. Eating well. Showing up daily for creative work.
All good things.
The issue is not discipline itself. The issue is how discipline can quietly become an attempt to control life.
When I am doing BOOST with others, there is a sense of shared rhythm and mutual support.
When I am trying to achieve all of this on my own, it tends to rely entirely on ME, on my own self-will.
And that reliance on self-will does two things at once:
It keeps my limited ego firmly in charge.
And it amplifies the inner voice that is always ready to remind me that I am doing it wrong.
The more effort I apply, the louder that voice becomes.
The more seriously I take the project of self-improvement, the more subtly I am seduced into believing that if something is off, it must be because I am failing to apply myself correctly.
This is the tyranny of self-will.*
Powerlessness Is Not a Bug
I now practice a spiritual path that can only begin when I recognize where I am powerless.
Not as a metaphor.
Not as a therapeutic insight.
But as a lived reality.
Lived honestly, powerlessness does not feel like giving up. It feels like a softening. A release from the constant internal pressure to make everything work.
It turns my attention toward the limits of my own capacity. Toward the fact that there are forces far greater than myself shaping the world, history, and the conditions of my life. Forces I cannot optimize my way around.
This recognition is not especially comforting.
It cuts against everything we are taught about agency, responsibility, and self-mastery. It confronts us with the truth that effort does not guarantee outcome. That sincerity does not ensure success. That discipline does not grant control.
And yet, this recognition is not meant to diminish us.
It is meant to free us from the burden of believing that everything rests on us.
Seen clearly, this isn’t just personal. It gently loosens us from the kind of “agentic” individualism that leaves us isolated inside our own striving. This hyper-individualism is isolation disguised as empowerment. And it keeps us blind to the ways larger systems, histories, and cultures give shape to the possible.
The spiritual path I’m walking still asks something of me. It does not absolve me of responsibility. It asks me to make a decision.
A decision to loosen the grip of my self-will. To step out of the driver’s seat. To turn my life and my will over to a power greater than myself.
This is not resignation. It is not passivity. And it is not giving up.
It is a form of surrender that paradoxically makes me more free.
Where This Leaves Me
Letting go of self-will does not mean dropping my human agency. It means meeting life more honestly.
It means acting without the illusion of control. Without the promise of success. Without guarantees. And without the fantasy that we can perfect ourselves or the world through effort alone.
Hope, in this sense, is not optimism. It is a practice of faith.
And faith means no matter what.
It implies a trust in a power and an arc vastly greater than anything I can conceive of or understand. It is a faith that I practice by loosening my grip, listening more carefully, and responding to what is actually here.
It means remaining oriented toward the good even when outcomes are uncertain. Refusing to turn away simply because I cannot control the result.
This faith, this hope, practiced over time, is how I am learning to live with integrity in a world that offers no guarantees.
*Last year we followed BOOST Your Practice with a virtual month-long Imperfection Retreat. Our guiding text was Oliver Berkman’s excellent book: Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts. I highly recommend it!
**A mentor recently recommended that I make an offering called BOOST Your Leisure. I haven’t designed it yet. But I’m allowing myself to grow into the possibility.