Self-Discipline

Why Self-Discipline is so Hard The transcript for the video with references.

The video is largely based on the work of Robert M. Sapolsky in his book Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. It is his attempt to answer the question "Why do we do the things we do?"

At any point in time, you're making a decision on how to act. The difficulty arises when you have to make a decision between what's immediately gratifying versus what is not gratifying now, but will be in the future. In other words, the difficulty lies in delaying gratification. But, what causes you to not act impulsively?

The reason for any single decision you make is multivariate: genes, hormones, evolution, social environment, physical environment, past experience, context of the situation, and a multitude of other factors all play a role. But, the most immediate cause of any of your actions can be traced back to your brain activity. When discussing self-discipline, one of the best places to start is with the neurotransmitter dopamine.

In his book Behave, Robert Sapolsky puts forth an example that clarifies at least one of the primary roles of dopamine in our brains. Let's say that I take a monkey and stick him in a cage. Now, I put a lever in there that, if he pushes it 10 times, rewards him with a raisin. Next, I turn on a light that comes on before the lever enters the cage. In other words, the light signals that the lever will be entering the cage which, in turn, signals that the monkey will be able to get a raisin. As a result, the monkey learns to associate the cue (a light) with the reward (a raisin). Interestingly, the monkey will begin to release more dopamine in response to the light than he does when consuming his reward. Contrary to popular belief, dopamine is about anticipation more than it is about reward 4. Certain cues in our environment hint at a potential reward and dopamine starts to rise in anticipation. Dopamine is what gets us to take action with respect to a goal 4.

"[Your brain] creates a sense of wanting or reward seeking based on the speed and size of a reward."

To live life is to have desires. The world fills you up with needs and wants, inviting you to come and interact with it. Every time you satisfy a desire, you receive an internal reward and a belief forms about how you did it. When that desire re-emerges, your brain activates the corresponding belief circuitry and dopamine releases, in anticipation of the reward, which motivates you to repeat the same action as before. In other words, you begin to form a habit. With each repetition, the neural pathway strengthens and you solidify the habit's role as the solution to your desire.

Here's the punchline: habits mediate the relationship between an individual’s desires and their environment. To change the habit, the individual, the environment, or both have to change, and that's why self-discipline is so hard.

We have little control over the biology that determines our desires. According to Sapolsky, individuals with ADHD have abnormal dopamine responses when thinking about immediate rewards vs delayed ones: they're biased towards impulsive action 4. Individuals who experience a childhood adversity are more likely to have an underdeveloped frontal cortex, making delayed gratification more difficult 4. Eventually, we may be able to change an individuals biology using science, but the morality and long-term consequences of this are questionable.

There is a part of our biology that is more malleable: the brain. An individual can be changed with education. As people learn more about the world, they can test out new beliefs and reinforce new behaviors.

This is related to drug addiction and addiction in general which is often seen as a combination of moral failing and drugs being irresistibly addictive. Researcher Bruce K. Alexander challenged the previous ideas of drugs causing addiction by performing an experiment dubbed "Rat Park." The original rat-drug-addiction experiments had rats in isolated cages with nothing but drugs. The researcher wondered if rats who had alternative and normal stimulation would still suffer a crippling addiction when presented with drugs like morphine.

Here is an awesome comic explaining the experiments by artist Stuart McMillen.

Self-mastery

The work of Shaolin Master Shi Heng Yi provides a guide on self-mastery:

5 Hindrances to Self-Mastery

1. Sensual desire (sight/touch/taste/smell/hearing) = Am I addicted?
2. Ill will / aversion = Am I feeling a negative emotion?
3. Dullness / heaviness = Am I unmotivated?
4. Restlessness = Is my mind jumping from thought to thought?
5. Sceptical doubt = Am I indecisive?

Rain

Recognize which hindrance you're experiencing Accept what you're experiencing Investigate why you're experiencing the hindrance Non-identify with the experience: 'I am not the body, I am not the mind, I am not my emotion'