The ability to discipline yourself with nothing but the power of your mind is one of the single greatest skills a human can have. Put the ice cream cone down, and pick up a book, then go to the gym then finish up that big project you started 3 months ago. It is the art of taking control of your own body even though it hurts. It's what separates kings from bums lying around on the side of the road.
"It's what separates kings from bums lying around on the side of the road."
Since kingship is, by definition, hereditary, I'm pretty sure that what separates kings from bums is largely a mere accident of birth.
Just as we have evolved with an unrealistic perceptual bias to see lions in forest shadows - thinking you see one where there isn't one is low cost, failing to see one when there is one is a potentially lineage-ending move - we've also evolved to think that we have much more influence on the course of our lives than we do.
We have limited self control; our conscious minds can really only inhibit unconscious impulses, and that only to a limited extent. Nevertheless, we've evolved to believe that we have much greater control than we do so that we continue to try to exercise the limited control that we do have, rather than not trying at all because we see our distinctly limited self control for what it is.
