In a children’s story called Cookies by Arnold Lobel, Toad baked some cookies and shared them with his friend Frog. After indulging for awhile, they decide that they better stop, but they have a hard time accomplishing this. Frog, the wiser friend, says that they need willpower and explains: “Will power is trying hard not to do something that you really want to do.”
They proceed to look for all kinds of behavioral strategies to get themselves to stop eating. However, they find out that it’s possible to overcome all the barriers they invent for putting the cookies out of reach.
Finally, Frog takes the box outside and opens it, and invites the birds to eat the cookies up. The birds come and empty the box of cookies.
Frog comments that they have no more cookies left, but they have lots of will power. Toad tells Frog he can keep his will power, but he is going home to bake a cake.
I love this story because everyone can identify with it at one time or another. Toad is the small child inside us who wants what it wants, and does not appreciate the value of forgoing short-term pleasures for the sake of long-term goals. Toad knows intellectually that eating up the entire box of cookies will give him a stomach ache, but he can’t think about that when they smell so good and taste so good.
It’s a real struggle to exercise will power, partly because you’re engaged in a confrontation. The child will fight even more fiercely, because his will is being crossed.
On a deeper level, we interpret self-restraint as asceticism. If we can’t have that cookie, we feel we are being deprived, and we naturally rebel against this.
A much easier strategy is to fortify our higher will, rather than call on our will power.
The child inside you wants the cookie, but the wise adult wants health and well-being even more.
This is the self-transcendence that Frankl speaks of when he talks about saying ‘no’ to your own desires and urges.
I have been repeatedly surprised and impressed by my three year old grandson’s ability to take ‘no’ for an answer when he wants something. He’s a normal three-year-old and cries sometimes when he doesn’t get his way, but he’s pretty good at accepting boundaries.
I believe that he can do this because his parents help him to verbalize his wants and needs and affirm his feelings, while being loving and firm. “Did grandma say you could have the applesauce?” “Okay, she said ‘no’ so you can’t” and then “Right, you’re sad that you can’t take more?”
I have found that when I treat my inner child with the same love and respect, affirm and verbalize its feelings, and guide it with gentle ‘yes’ and ‘no’-saying, that it is far easier than engaging in a battle of wills or trying to put the proverbial cookies out of reach.
This is the relationship we are supposed to have to our body. It is a precious child in need of guidance.
At the same time, we access not our will-power but our will, which deep inner motivation that comes from a very strong and confident knowing of what is good for us and what values are important to us. Thus, the best strategy for overcoming any challenge is to reach for our inner will, and to know that it is in fact much stronger than our material wants.