All self-control devices can impair your reward-getting effectiveness: If you have yourself tied to a mast, you can't row; if you block attention or memory, you may miss vital information; and if you nip emotion in the bud, you'll become emotionally cold. Unfortunately, personal rules, which are the most powerful and flexible strategy against the effects of hyperbolic discounting, also have the greatest potential for harming your longest-range interests.

SIDE EFFECTS OF WILLPOWER

Suspicions of the will are fairly recent. Recognition of a will-like process that can oppose the promptings of impulse goes back to the classical Greeks, but until modern times it was regarded as an undiluted blessing. For example, Aristotle described not only passions that could overcome people suddenly, but also countervailing “dispositions.” These are forces that develop through consistent choice (habit) in one direction and subsequently impel further choice in that direction. He was clearly rooting for these dispositions to win out.