# Work and Willpower By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2023-02-28 Sometimes I have a hard time falling asleep because my mind is racing about an idea, reliving a recent experience, or contemplating a future stressful event. There are several tactics that I've tried to fall asleep when this happens. One is to meditate. The intent here is to quiet my mind. I find this typically works, but I'll often wake back up in a few hours with my mind racing again. The other tactic is to listen to sports talk radio. Here the intent is to distract my mind with inane and mostly meaningless chatter. For me, this works even better than meditation. I suspect it's because distraction is often more powerful than willpower. If you look close enough, you'll see this dynamic everywhere. People get hobbies to distract them from painful events or curb addictions. Organizations explore shiny new ideas versus being patient and keeping true to what made them successful. We consume extremely complex stories of people developing versus spending time developing ourselves. Having the willpower to achieve something takes a lot of energy and focus because you are fighting the entropy of the universe. We only have so much willpower before we run out and look to the nearest distraction. As such, we should treat it as a valuable resource. Only use it on things that matter, and often we spend too much of it pretending to be something we are not at work. #### Related Items [[Willpower]] [[Energy]] [[Thinking]] [[Work]] [[Development]] [[Choice]]