A return to willingness

After four months of consistent writing, I took a break last month and it was the right call. I needed the pause to take care of a few things. But when I tried to return to the page, I hit an unexpected resistance.

It felt like I was starting all over again. The doubt crept in:
“What will I write about?”
“I’m not inspired.”
“That idea is too long.”
“That idea is too short.”

Every day for the last two weeks, I wanted to write. And every day, the resistance felt heavier, including today.

Today, I realised the struggle to write was exactly what I needed to write about. Or more broadly: the struggle to return to something. But even with that realisation, the resistance remained.

So what changed?

Nothing, really. This day is no different from any other, except that I’m consciously choosing to return. You could say the day didn’t change anything. I changed the day.

But how?

The experience I just described is something we all go through, isn’t it?

There are things we know we need to do, and yet we don’t do them. We say, “I just can’t.”

Can’t? Is that true?

Pause for a second. Think about one thing you said that about in the last week. One task, one habit, one decision you avoided, saying to yourself: “I can’t do it.”

Let’s look closer.

When we say we can’t do something, we imply a lack of ability. I can’t fly, no matter how hard I flap my arms (trust me, I’ve tried). But is it really true that I can’t write today?

No.

Now go back to the thing you thought of. Would it be more accurate to say you can’t do it, or that you won’t do it?

The distinction might seem small. But it’s powerful. It touches something essential about our agency and our freedom.

To paraphrase Irvin Yalom in Existential Psychotherapy (1980), the shift from “I can’t” to “I won’t” is a movement from helplessness to unwillingness.

Often, we disguise our unwillingness as helplessness.

Back to my example: when I told myself “I can’t write,” the more accurate truth was “I won’t write.” As soon as I named it that way, something else kicked in. A voice inside me responded:

“And why the hell is that? Yes, you will.”

It was uncomfortable to admit I was unwilling. But in that discomfort, I found a sense of choice and with that, the first real movement back to the page.

That’s how we reclaim agency:
Not by shaming ourselves.
Not by performing positivity.
But by recognising where we’ve handed away our own power.

Here’s the trajectory:

Helpless—————————————Unwilling———————————————Willing

Now, an important note, especially for those of us who tend toward shame or self-blame:

Just as we shouldn’t call ourselves helpless when we’re actually unwilling, we also shouldn’t call ourselves unwilling when we’re truly helpless. That’s where self-help culture often gets it wrong. That’s how we end up trying to shame ourselves into change and we already know that doesn’t work.

If I told myself I just “won’t fly,” I’d end up shaming myself for not flapping my arms hard enough to start levitating. That’s absurd. And it’s damaging.

We’re not here to slip into magical thinking or toxic positivity. We’re here to become more honest about where we do have choice, so we can begin to act on it.

If you remember this small shift in language, can’t vs. won’t, you might begin to locate more of your life inside your own hands. The words we use to talk to ourselves reveal how we view the world. But the good news is: changing those words can also change the way we engage with that world.

Thank you for reading. We’ll return to our regularly scheduled posts next week because today, I found my way back to willingness.

I hope you do too.