Our choices add up; each one influences others, and cumulatively a series of delightful short-term choices can leave us much worse off in the long run. - Daniel Akst
At least one study of blocked writers has found that they were more productive and more creative when they were essentially forced to write instead of scribbling only when the mood struck them. - Daniel Akst
Exercising self-restraint can be depleting, yet it can also be ennobling. - Daniel Akst
Be systematically heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty, so that, when the hour of need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved or untrained to stand the test. - Daniel Akst
While we don't have much say over the desires that we have, we certainly can decide which we prefer-and then search for ways to act on that basis. - Daniel Akst
Self-regulation will always be a challenge, but if somebody's going to be in charge, it might as well be me. - Daniel Akst
Besides, what matters, when it comes to self-control, isn't so much willpower as vision-the ability to see the future, so that the long-run consequences of our short-run choices are vividly clear. In that sense, our shortcomings in this arena are really failures of imagination. - Daniel Akst
In matters of self-control as we shall see again and again, speed kills. But a little friction really can save lives. - Daniel Akst