Volition - it's kind of, like, the opposite of no choice

This is an old post from my now-defunct Myspace blog. I'm going to post some of the older postings in reverse chronological order to put a little meat on the bones of this puppy.

Originally posted on Monday, April 30, 2007.

Words are a powerful thing. I appreciated that as a psych student; I appreciate it even more as a law student. (There has, by the way, been an entire Supreme Court case over a misplaced comma.) While we all misspeak and misspell now and then, there's one thing that's been grating on my nerves hardcore lately: the abandonment of responsibility that comes when people use non-volitional words to describe volitional acts.

Psychologists will tell you that no one really "makes" you angry. You choose to be angry. OK, if someone shoots your best friend in the face while you're standing there, it's more likely that you'll become angry (after wetting your pants), but it's still not a proximal result. To the extent such things are quick emotional cues, I suppose I could even agree to the idea that these are somewhere in the gray area between "choice" and "instant emotion."

But volitional acts devoid of emotion are an entirely different matter. One I recently heard was "I'm just not good at replying to e-mail." Well, isn't that delightful? You've just taken a completely volitional act (choosing to respond or not to respond to someone) and by using the magic of the English language, you've turned it into a personality trait that just is. It's one reason psychologists caution against the overuse of descriptive nouns. Yes, technically if you lie, you're a liar, at least at that moment. But once branded a liar, a person may feel that that's just who he is. Why change? It's just me!

"I'm just not good at replying to e-mail." No, you choose not to reply to e-mail. Maybe instead you got a cup of coffee, BSed with your co-workers, stepped outside for a smoke--all volitional choices. Maybe I'm just whining po-tay-to vs. po-taa-to here, but for Christ's sake people, accept responsibility for your lives. If you're "not good" at a simple volitional act that you're perfectly capable of doing, try a new sentence next time and say something like, "I just chose not to e-mail you back because I chose to do something else instead."