Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

Many people who seem to lack the "ability to stay on task" that *other people have assigned to them* are really just people who are incredibly good at preventing rewards and punishments from distracting them from the task they assigned themselves.

Many people who have difficultly staying on task that others assign them also have difficult staying on task that they assign themselves. I’m one of them.

The implicit model here - that discipline developed with rewards and punishments is unrelated to, or even undermines, independent self- discipline - seems very common but I find it suspect. Do ex-soldiers, for example, have trouble with self-discipline?

I don’t know, but I’d predict a distinct difference in outcomes between soldiers subjected to especially grueling intake procedures (designed to filter out those not sufficiently motivated to continue) & those who are not

Ime very few children are intrinsically motivated to things that are hard or not fun. Clearly a huge aspect of being an effective person is to be able to “stay on task”. The habits learned under supervision are utilized when unsupervised.

Children do very difficult things all the time with no prompting, and often display a desire for mastery that puts the typical adult to shame. They just won’t do it if they’re not interested, they don’t see the point, they don’t agree with your values