(no subject)

[sugarglidrobot]

I read an article the other day comparing self-control to a muscle. The point was that if you exercise self-control in one situation then that "muscle" becomes tired and you are less likely to exercise self-control later on. This surprised me, as initially I imagined that the direction the analogy was going in was that when you exercise sef control you build it up over time. I've been thinking about this a lot because my daily life is pretty focused around various projects and rewards, all self-directed. It's coming up to 1.5 years since I've worked, so I can pretty much do whatever I want and there are no external consequences, but I have routines I try to keep to. This idea of self-control as a finite resource makes it seem that the more I go to the gym, the less likely I will be to bottle wine or practice scales on the violin. If this is the case, I'm also more likely to work out (practicing self control) after eating a batch of cookies (not practicing self-control).
In my experience when I start doing the things I have set out to do for the day, I am pretty likely to complete all the tasks. If I don't bother exercising, I just write the day off and don't do anything else. Fortunately those days don't happen all that often. I'm more likely to go to the gym after eating a lot of cookies, but I think that's because those two things are directly related. I doubt I'd be more likely to practice fiddle exercises after eating sweets.
Somehow that seemed worth breaking a many-month livejournal fast.