I’ve been conducting a mental experiment recently and have discovered something surprising. “Want” is stronger than “ought.”

Imagine someone tells you that you ought to do something. Inside, a little voice says, “I don’t want to.” The same thing happens when we tell ourselves that we ought to do something or stop doing something.

But what happens when we stop and ask ourselves “What do you want to do?” Or, better, “what do you really want to do?” When feeling a craving for an unhealthy snack, or to click for one more “informative” Youtube, or to criticize that “idiot” who has done it again, just pause and ask yourself, “What do you want to do?”

We know what we should do, and we resist it. When we give ourselves half a second to consider what do we really want to do, we might surprise ourselves and discover that our smarter self actually wants to do what we should do. And suddenly it’s a whole lot easier.

No matter how that conversation ends, and whatever we end up doing, at least we will have recognized an important truth, namely, that we are making a choice.