Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength

by Roy F. Baumeister

No one, of course, can anticipate all temptations, especially today. No matter what you do to avoid physical casinos, you’re never far from virtual casinos, not to mention all the other enticements perpetually available on the Web. But the technology that creates new sins also enables new precommitment strategies. A modern Odysseus can try lashing himself to his browser with software that prevents him from hearing or seeing certain Web sites. A modern Stanley can use the Web in the same way that the explorer used the social media of his day. In Stanley’s private letters, newspaper dispatches, and public declarations, he repeatedly promised to reach his goals and to behave honorably—and he knew, once he became famous, that any failure would make headlines. Having piously lectured his men about the perils of drunkenness and the need to shun sexual temptations in Africa, he knew how conspicuous his own lapses would be. By creating the public persona of himself as Bula Matari, the unyielding Breaker of Rocks, he forced himself to live up to it. As a result of his oaths and his image, Jeal said, “Stanley made it impossible in advance to fail through weakness of will.”