Q: I am aware of my weakness, but I am not able to overcome it. Why is this?

A by Srinath Srinivasa:

It is first important to understand what is meant by "weakness".

In our minds, there are two cognitive¹ "engines" -- the rational engine and the emotional engine. The rational engine is what we employ for conscious and deliberate decision-making. The emotional engine is what typically drives our actions and impulses.

The emotional engine is usually overridden² by our rational engine. However, the emotional engine is far more powerful than the rational engine.

The cognitive psychologist Jonathan Haidt compares this to a man (rational engine) riding on an elephant (emotional engine). The elephant is tame and usually obeys the man, but if the elephant goes wild, the man is practically powerless in front of it.

What we call as a "weakness" is basically the inability of the rational engine to control or regulate the emotional engine.

Typically the way we go about addressing our weakness is to either start fighting it head-long, or try to distract ourselves hoping that it would go away.

Both of these approaches are bound to fail. If a man starts to fight a wild elephant, well the result is already known. Similarly, just ignoring the wild elephant will not make it go away -- it will continue with its rampage.

To address our weaknesses, we need to look at how we can manage an unruly animal. Let us look at a more common example of managing street dogs. A street dog for instance, can be overpowered and tamed. But this process is painful and damaging to the dog as well as to ourselves.

A much better way is to treat the street dog with empathy, make friends with it and allow it to be itself. Let the dog cooperate with you out of its own free will, rather than make it "obey" your will. Let you and the dog live in harmony instead of a power struggle.

The same thing applies to the rational and the emotional engines. If we pit them against each other in a one-up power game, we will end up severely³ damaging ourselves.

Instead, think of your rational engine as the wise, sensible, human and the emotional engine as the impulsive⁴ animal which means no harm, and which just wants to live. Now let this "wise" rational engine enter into a dialogue with the "impulsive" emotional engine, in a calm, nurturing⁵, non-judgmental fashion. Much like how a parent would converse⁶ with a child.

Let the emotional engine speak what it wants to say and express itself. Listen to it without passing moral judgments⁷ and without acting⁸ on its words. Just soothe⁹ it back (like say, the "All is well" dialogue of 3-idiots or something) till it calms down.

Our "weakness" or the impulses of our emotional engine never completely goes away -- it is part of who we are, our identity. But once we enter into a dialogue with our emotional self, the weakness ceases to be a weakness any longer. What appears as emotional impulses may well be a deep-rooted personality trait that was the result of our evolutionary¹⁰ history, trying to tell us something. We may end up becoming a whole lot wiser, just by listening impassively to what our emotions are saying..