Willpower is for losers

Friday afternoon is a hectic time in any frum household. As the sunset deadline looms, pressure mounts to get all the Shabbos preparation done in time. Children must be cleaned and dressed, muktzeh must be put away, supper cooking time must be carefully co-ordinated before leaving the house, time-switches must be set up, alarms deactivated, and all the details that guard and honour the Shabbos Queen seen to. Yet for two weeks out of the past three the streets of Victory Park have seen me jogging around the block for precisely thirty minutes as the sun touches the treetops.

I can handle the exercise, but it normally takes a perfect confluence of factors to get me to put on my running shoes. The weather has to be just right, I have to be in perfect health, nobody must need me for the next hour or so, and I have to magically achieve that rare state of enthusiasm for physical effort. How did it happen that I came to be sweating on a Friday afternoon when there were so many more urgent things to do?

Fitbit. More precisely, Discovery Vitality points from my Fitbit workout. We have in fact already reached our points target for this year, but I get a discount on the Fitbit if I consistently achieve my weekly goals. As a desk-jockey it is unusual for me to take ten thousand steps in a day, so the only alternative is actual exercise.

There are many examples of companies using points to guide customers’ behaviour – it’s even got a name: gamification. People do all sorts of things to get ephemeral points on a leader board that have no real-world consequences. I too am not immune to a feeling of pride when Discovery tells me my goal streak has extended to seven weeks in a row, even though there are no actual humans cheering my achievements. That positive reinforcement makes me jump through the hoops they put before me just so I can hear their faceless algorithms say I have been a good boy.

It’s true that in my case there is a measurable financial gain in achieving my points goal, but if you took the time to calculate it you’d probably find you couldn’t buy a (kosher) takeaway meal for the extra money accrued by that last minute workout. If it were an ad hoc case of someone offering me a few bucks to set out on a jog, I can’t see it getting me off the couch.

So have I given up my free choice to profiteers who want to keep me healthy only to minimise their financial risk? Yes, and willingly. Disregarding how else companies or shadowy state-actors can influence society through digital means, I have enthusiastically chosen to use their stimulus to get me fit, healthy and losing weight. Because it would simply not happen otherwise.

I vividly remember a few years ago speaking to a doctor friend of mine about the struggle to keep fit, and agreeing that if I didn’t change my lifestyle I would probably have health issues later in life. “No”, he said, “you will definitely have health issues later in life.” That was a shock to hear, and I am grateful for his bluntness because it solidified my intentions, but as much as I tried to get a regular exercise regimen going my resolve melted away in the face of all the other requirements on my time. When I learned about the Fitbit benefit and how it worked I saw a way to trick myself into getting fit.

It might seem disappointing that a functioning adult can’t give their health a higher priority without resorting to external tricks, and many who know me would agree that I could do with a maturity injection (administered via combat boot, probably), but while I admire those souls whose rational decisions can overcome their inertia I no longer berate myself for needing artificial motivation. The Torah itself warns against trying to overcome temptation head-on.

When King David learned that King Saul was killed by the Philistines, he delivered a long and emotional eulogy detailing the enormous loss to the nation. A shallow reading of the narrative might leave you with the impression that our first King was just a placeholder for the one who came after him, but the Gemara actually implies at one point that he was in fact far greater than the more famous King David. As you might expect from someone literally chosen by G-d to rule His chosen people, he was a spiritual giant, notwithstanding his shortcomings.

King David begins his eulogy with a verse that seem out of place: “And he said to teach the children of Yehudah the bow…” (II Samuel 1:18) This cryptic phrase is in fact a great praise of King Saul’s huge strength of will. He was able to overcome his Yetzer Hara at the moment of temptation, like a warrior battling his enemy face-to-face with a sword. He would do the right thing even in the face of great desire to sin. Not so other people. Now that King Saul had died people had to be taught to fight the Yetzer Hara with the bow, i.e. from far away. We have to use plans and tricks and strategies to avoid being put into temptation in the first place. We have to keep far away from the chance to sin, like a bowman who keeps himself far from his enemy even when he attacks.

This is not to say that resisting temptation has no value. It is a great service of our Creator to do His will by nullifying our own. The Gemara, however, speaks harshly about someone who puts himself into the path of temptation. A man who chooses to walk past a brothel, even though he does not go in, is called a sinner. He should have taken another path that offered no opportunity to sin, even if he knew he would prevail over his desires.

This was my thinking when I signed up to the Device Booster on the Discovery app. It may well be an admission of defeat in my quest to be the master of my inclinations, but I am happy to escape those inclinations where I can rather than fight them.