When Willpower Meets Temptations

In an experiment a group of people were asked not to touch the cookies in the waiting room while others had no such temptation. All participants were then asked to solve a challenging puzzle. The group whose willpower was tried before gave up earlier. Apparently they spent all their willpower trying to resist eating cookies so there was little willpower left to tackle the puzzle. Willpower is like a muscle, it gets tired as you use it.

A spiritual path traveler will face temptations; things that one thinks one shouldn't do, but  you do them nevertheless just because they feel great only to find that you are left with a bad conscience afterwards. We all remember Jesus and Buddha's temptations before they reached their final liberation; why can't we do it we ask and promise ourselves that next time we will try  twice as hard.

My personal view is that you should stop banging your head into the wall. Let the cookie example speak to you. If you promise yourself to stop doing something for the rest of your life, you exhaust the willpower you have right there just because 'for the rest of the life' happens to be a very long time. Instead, try understanding what the consequences of your actions are and start analyzing what happens when you follow your 'pernicious habits' and what happens when you stay clean instead. Passion versus peace, sensation versus serenity; experiment and the trade off becomes very clear to you. In my experience your drives and desires fall of naturally along the path, if something is struggle then you are not quite ready for the next step. Keep trying, keep analyzing what your trade off is and how you can express your uniqueness and the answer will come to you. Very much like a mother will stop drinking and smoking when she discovers that she is pregnant, a spiritual path traveler quits what interferers with her peace and serenity for the very reason that there is no alternative.