This is Odin, also known as the All-father.
He will become the wisest and most powerful of the Norse gods, but not yet.
For now, he hangs from Yggdrasil, the world tree that holds all nine worlds together,
with a spear lodged in his chest.
He will hang there for nine days, and nine nights, on the border between life and death.
All the while, he peers down into the magical waters of the well below, calling out for
the godly knowledge of the runes.
Satisfied with his sacrifice, they emerge, revealing to him their wisdom and bestowing
him with great power.
Odin had given himself to himself.
Or, more specifically, he sacrificed his present-self for his future-self.
It's no coincidence that he had to perform the greatest sacrifice for the greatest reward.
This story is, at the least, a metaphor for self-sacrifice or self-discipline.
And, it's one that we have been telling for generations.
Humanity has held the virtue of self-control in such high regards that it's a staple in
most religions and the moral of many myths.
In Christianity, the first sin - eating the forbidden fruit - was a lapse in self-control.
In Greek mythology, evil entered the world when Pandora could not control her curiosity
and opened the box.
This myth, in particular, has even entered our everyday language.
If I want you to avoid a temptation, for fear of causing disastrous consequences, I might
warn you against "opening Pandora's box".
The elevation of this virtue to religious and mythic proportions highlights a commonly
held belief: self-discipline plays a huge role in leading you to your best future, as
in the case of Odin, or your worst one, as with Pandora.
If this is true, it seems like it would be great if we could all have some more self-discipline.
But, what is self-discipline?
People often use the term to describe someone who makes "good" long-term decisions by overcoming
short-term temptations and that's reasonable.
But, when you ask them how they overcome these short-term temptations, they often invoke
some sort of *will* or *willpower*.
What *will* actually means isn't really obvious.
But, before we get to that, let's start at the beginning: the decision.
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
[8]*.
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 [8].* So, how does this
relate to self-discipline?
Let's say that you're deciding between an immediate reward and a delayed reward.
When you think about the immediate reward, dopamine is sent to certain parts of the brain
known as limbic targets [8].
When you think of the delayed reward, dopamine is sent to a different part of the brain known
as frontocortical targets [8].
If the part of the brain associated with delayed reward is more stimulated, you're more likely
to delay gratification [8].
Again, dopamine plays a role in *driving* our action.
So, how does your brain decide how much dopamine is sent to each part?
Again, this comes down to several complex factors such as past experiences, genes, hormones,
social environment, physical environment, the context of the situation and so on.
But, pragmatically, the brains decision is affected by how pleasurable the reward is
and how much time it takes to get that reward [8].
Here's an example to help you understand it intuitively.
Let's say that I make you an offer: you can have $100 today or $100 tomorrow.
The reward is the same but the time delay is greater in the second scenario.
You'll probably take the $100 today because there's no point in waiting until tomorrow.
But, what if I said that you could get $100 today or $200 tomorrow?
It's more likely that you'll be willing to wait, if an extra $100 is pleasurable enough.
But, what if I said that if you wait until tomorrow, you could get $101.
You'll probably revert back to taking the $100 today.
Your brain does multiple calculations like this every time you decide.
It creates a sense of wanting or reward seeking based on the speed and size of a reward.
So, how do you end up determining what rewards to seek?
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 [8].
Individuals who experience a childhood adversity are more likely to have an underdeveloped
frontal cortex, making delayed gratification more difficult [8].
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.
But, this leads me to the heart of the issue.
Self-discipline is much more of an environmental problem than it is an individual one.
While an individual can change their beliefs and behaviors through education, the resources
available for education are presented by the environment.
Furthermore, the habits an individual builds to meet their desires are, in large part,
a product of what's available in the environment.
A study done by neuroscientist Carl Hart found that when meth addicts were given a choice
between $5 and 50mg of meth, the addicts took the $5 half of the time [11].
When he increased the value of the cash reward to $20, they almost never took the drug [11].
He found similar results with crack cocaine addicts [11].
Hart suggests that addicts are actually rational decision makers, and will choose not to take
a drug when there are "alternative reinforcers" [11].
It seems that drug habits are more likely to be formed when individuals are in an environment
that offers no alternative or competing ways to meet their desires.
Bruce Alexander found similar results when he conducted his now-famous study: *Rat Park*
[12].
Prior to Alexander's study, it was commonly believed that addiction was caused primarily
by drugs.
When you take a drug, you get addicted.
That's how the story went.
But, Alexander noticed that most drug-related studies occurring at the time placed rats
in isolation.
He wondered if this played a role in the rats deciding to take the drug.
It turns out that it did [12].
When rats were in isolation, it wouldn't be a surprise to see them consume a drug until
they died.
But, when Alexander constructed a "Rat Park" complete with friends, sexual partners, toys,
and so on, rats were much less likely to take the drugs.
Both of these studies present an interesting idea: addiction is much less likely to occur
when you have greater access to alternative ways to meet your own desires.
In his *Meditations,* Marcus Aurelius said that,
We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper
and lower.
To obstruct each other is unnatural.
To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.
People are a product of their environments a lot more than we like to think.
By acknowledging this, we can have more compassion for one another but, more importantly, we
can begin helping one another.
By providing people with as many opportunities as possible for learning and alternative ways
to meet their needs, we can eradicate the problem of self-discipline.
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