Schopenhauer argued that the will — the blind, striving force underneath all human action — cannot be reasoned with directly. You cannot talk someone out of a craving; you can only redirect the energy by giving it a more compelling object. This is a deeply underappreciated insight for anyone designing fitness routines or wellness advice: the bottleneck is rarely information, it's competition. The short workout someone actually does at 6am is winning a contest against the bed, the phone, the ten other pulls on their attention. So the design question isn't 'what's optimal?' — it's 'what is this competing against, and how do I make it easier to choose than the alternative?' That might mean setting out shoes the night before, capping the session at a number so small it feels embarrassing to skip, or anchoring the habit to something already anchored. Schopenhauer thought art was the only true relief from the will's ceaseless striving. You don't need art — you need friction that's lower on one side of the scale than the other.

What is the competing pull that defeats the behavior you're trying to build or recommend — and have you actually reduced that pull, or just increased the argument for the behavior?

Drawing from German Idealism / Voluntarist Philosophy — Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Representation, 1818)