The self-control crisis

Human beings have agency, we've been gaslit by modernity we don't

Scene from Wall-E, which was honestly more for parents than kids. I feel like very few actually internalized the lessons from it.

In our hyper-stimulated culture the concept of self-control has become, to put it lightly, anachronistic. There’s a certain tragicomedy in watching us so-called evolved, technologically sophisticated humans cling desperately to our devices, our distractions, our dopamine hits, while the fabric of many lives unravels into the pursuit of instant gratification. What many want is everything to be easier, faster, simpler, but without any thought as to why. I shared some examples of this pathology here as related to blind ‘optimization for optimization’s sake’ but I want to come back to this topic again in a different light (I actually think the over-optimizers can be fixed, they’ve got that dog in them — just need some larger purpose).

Our collective craving for ease is really just an existential pacifier, a distraction from existing in a world that feels overwhelming and indifferent. What’s curious (and darkly comical) about this is the more we succeed in making life easier, the less satisfied we become. We have technologies to make life smoother, but are simultaneously losing the very muscle that allows us to deal with life’s inevitable roughness: self-control (or self-discipline if you prefer). If all of man’s problems stem from not being able to sit quietly in a room, how many people are now capable of doing this very long? Or even attempt it regularly?

Self-control in the classical sense is about resisting temptation, delaying gratification and choosing the more difficult or even just path less traveled. It’s about standing firm against the current of immediate desires or perhaps even just the crowd and saying, “no, I will not take the easy way out.” It’s in doing things even when you don’t want to such as going to the gym (in building this habit, I’ve found going on the days I didn’t want to go were the most critical). Yet, in the era of on-demand everything, the very idea of resisting temptation seems almost quaint. Who needs self-control when the world is optimized to give you exactly what you want, when you want it? The ‘private taxi for my burrito’ meme comes to mind.

Extend this to how you want to feel via substances, because we’ve done that too (while demonizing psychedelics, which might actually force change — convinced these continue to be outlawed because on some level they are counter-modernity). Here lies the rub: the more we apply these small, easy fixes the more we surrender our agency. Kudos to everyone able to maintain a state of moderation, but there’s a case to be made to opt out of easy answers entirely. In financials, for example, nearly all of the quick, short term solutions just lead to long term pain and ruin. We do this at the macro level through infinite money printing and continued wealth transfer from young to old, many have made the case this is the singular cause of our pain. It’s short-termism and societal lack of impulse control.

Let’s take an even simpler example, our smartphones: something most of us are addicted to if we’re being honest with ourselves. It’s a device of convenience, yes, but also one of compulsion and consumption (convinced actually tech savvy individuals minimize their use). People reach for their devices not because they need them, but because they’ve trained themselves to seek micro-doses of validation, entertainment, and distraction. Every notification, every like, every post is a tiny hit of dopamine, a fleeting moment of satisfaction that dissolves as quickly as it arrives. And so we scroll, endlessly, through feeds and timelines, never quite content, never quite satisfied, always looking for the next fix. This is not the behavior of a species in control of its desires, it’s that of low impulse control addicts. Cell phones don’t have to be used like this.

What’s even more pernicious is how this ethos of ease seeps into other aspects of our lives. People avoid difficult conversations because they’re uncomfortable. They shy away from challenging tasks because they’re time-consuming. They don’t listen to full albums, just 30 second TikTok clips or random slop served by Spotify algos. They don’t talk to new people in public because there’s dating apps that allow the ability to “just text,” it’s easier, at the cost of building an important social muscle. People take shortcuts and opt for the path of least resistance, and wonder why their lives don’t get any better. They want results without effort, growth without struggle, success without sacrifice. Paradoxically, the very things that make life meaningful—accomplishment, growth, mastery—are impossible without some level of friction.

This avoidance of difficulty, this pathological aversion to discomfort, is, I would argue, the root cause of much malaise that afflicts modern life. We’ve been sold the lie that happiness is a function of ease, that the good life is a frictionless life, sipping margaritas by the pool. But a life without friction is a life without traction, it’s a life where you slide around, aimlessly, with nothing to hold onto, nowhere to go. It’s nihilistic and low agency. Self-control, then, is not just about resisting temptation, but about embracing the tough stuff, the hard things, the work that makes life feel real. Could you even enjoy a movie where the characters don’t struggle and sacrifice? Of course not. So if you don’t accept it in fiction, why do so in reality?

It’s compounded worse when therapists and doctors leave people in a state of learned helplessness. When we bias to a pill to focus, an injection for weight loss, they’re punting on any real behavior change (and playing with biochemistry in extreme ways that have tradeoffs no one thinks about). Tools to be used for extreme cases, sure, but for everyone? I think we’ve greatly lost the plot. You can read the comments on this recent Tweet - once you’re free of the “instant answers” perspective the world looks very different. It might even be good, because now you have a real hero’s journey type mission to do better.

If there’s a way out, it might be as simple — and as difficult — as building the lost art of self-control and reclaiming our agency. Not only because it’s virtuous, but because it’s necessary. Without it, we’re doomed to a life of perpetual dissatisfaction, forever seeking ease in an existence that was never meant to be easy. We just didn’t evolve for that, it’s antithetical to our evolution and the human condition. Are you really proud of anything that was handed to you or you didn’t work for? Probably not. But if you’re at all still human, you feel great about what you put your heart into, even if it doesn’t work out to expectation. And again, all of us have the choice to live better, if we elect to.