Inclination or will?

I used to be an early bird.  I don't know what's changed*, but lately I'm perfectly content to rise at 8am if no necessity exists to rise earlier. Whereas for much of my life I've found it difficult to lie in to such a depraved and decadent hour.

In retrospect, I realise I once prided myself slightly on this sign of virtue or at least productivity (the early bird catches the worm and all that). Unconsciously, I mistook inclination for will.  I suspect I'm not alone in this error

There's a lot less will involved when we act in accord with our natural inclination. I've never smoked, for example, but this requires no virtue as I've never wanted to smoke. I don't want to eat seafood and I don't want to smoke. One carries a bit more social approval than the other, but to me they are basically the same random characteristic.

Yet we see this unconscious assumption operate all the time.

For example, people who are orderly by inclination may pride themselves on their superior organisational ability. They assume, at some level,  that all those other messy people just don't have the will power to get themselves in order. Which is a bit like priding yourself on your extra 5 inches in height, that those other short people just don't have the will power to grow.

Ok, personality and habit are more malleable than height. Maybe. High heels are just as much a bolt-on as tidiness if no intrinsic desire for either tidiness or height exists. A petite woman may feel more social approval, or at least equality, when she wears 4 inch heels. I suspect a petite woman living in isolation feels no compelling need for height-remediation by footwear. Equally an untidy woman may not need to keep her papers in manilla folders in order to lay her hand on the one she wants but may get more social approval, or less disapproval, when she keeps her desk 'tidy', even if this reduces her productivity.

So the next time you feel like congratulating yourself on your willpower or indulging in a spot of self-righteousness, ask yourself: is this more about my inclination than my will?

* It may simply be encroaching middle-age, but I'd rather come up with a more palatable solution.