“I Say To You, Don’t Think About Elephants.” What Inception Teaches Us About Self- Control.

Arthur: "Okay, here’s me planting an idea in your head. I say to you, don’t think about elephants. What are you thinking about?"

Saito: “Elephants.”

The titular line is delivered as Saito, the semi-antagonist of the film Inception tries to convince Cobb to plant an idea in the mind of his competitor’s son, who will soon be heir to his father’s company, so that his competitor’s son, in turn, will crumble or split the empire. Thus, making Saito’s company the most powerful. Or, at the very least, one more company away from being the most powerful.

But, as you can see from the example at the outset, planting an idea is very difficult, because as Arthur later explains:

“The dreamer can always remember the genesis of the idea. True inspiration is impossible to fake.”

But, I, like Cobb, say to you: No, it’s not.

This brief dialogue reveals something about our human nature as beings with innate desires. That, not thinking about something is very difficult to do, especially when you know you are not supposed to be thinking about it.

But, you may ask, what is so wrong about just thinking something? Be it right or wrong.

Because a thought in our minds can and, most likely, will materialize by our very own hands.

So, what is implicated in self-control? For some, it means buying the time spent on watching television to spend time with the children or spouse. For others, it means the difference between being one beer away from saying or doing something you will later regret and, not.

Yet, for others, it is not smoking a pack of cigarettes.

Then, there are the more simple ones, like not spending as much time playing video games and instead doing some reading, writing, cleaning and, believe it or not, even just taking a shower. (I worked with someone who had bad hygiene because they played so late at night they didn’t even shower).

But, whatever reason you may have, it is no doubt that self-control is an arduous task.

Some may claim they have very good force of will and can inherently decide whether to do a certain task, or not, at the flick of a thought.

But, we’re not talking about force of will. Force of will is different. Force of will is what makes you a hard worker. It allows you to wake up early in the morning. To manage your money.

Self-control, on the other hand, helps with the mentioned, above. And the benefits, when you do acquire it, are great.

Self-control can stop us from taking a romantic interest in someone that is not our spouse or someone whom we know is not good for us. It can help bad spending habits. It can stop you from binge eating (I know many suffer from this as a health problem). But hear me out. You can help it.

So how can we have self-control?

One gamer set out to find just that. There was a video on YouTube that showed how he tried and failed again and again to stop himself from playing video games for a certain amount of time to spend time doing other things. But his method was not working. He was using his sheer force of will. But the object of his desire remained ever-present both in physical and mental form and, eventually he convinced himself that playing only a few minutes would do no harm. But, as you can imagine, those few minutes turned into hours and, once again, he found himself failing his initial goal: stop playing video games for a period of time to buy time for more important tasks.

His solution? Elimination.

He didn’t eliminate his console. No, because he still wanted to play video games. He just wanted to balance his time between doing other things he wanted to do, like reading or cleaning and having time also to play video games.

So, what he did was simply remove his ability to play video games by locking up his controller. Now, you may think:

Well, that may not work because if his desire to play becomes strong enough, which it will, then he can simply unlock whatever safe he placed his controller in, because, ultimately, he still has the lock. Much like we do with credit cards when we put them away.

Unless… he doesn’t have the key. What am I talking about? He went and bought himself a box where you can place the things you want to “eliminate” and lock them inside. This box does not have a combination nor a key to open it. Instead, what this box is built in with is a timer. So the moment you close the lid and start the timer the lid locks and the timer begins, whatever time that may be, that you yourself put. Only once that time is up will the box unlock and the controller is set free for you to use.

In the film Inception, Cobb plants an idea in his wife’s mind to make her realize she is still dreaming and that they need to wake up. But, he implants the idea deep in her subconscious. So deep, that even when she wakes up she still believes that she is dreaming and, therefore, believes she still needs to kill herself in order to wake up from her dream to go back to their, supposedly, real children, when in fact, they are already in the real world.

That is how bad habits work. Social media plays with our innate desires to make us think we need a want when in fact we can live just fine without it, even happier without it. They implant the idea so deep that you actually begin to think you need it and you go out and buy it.

Every time you get on social media and see that other people are “supposedly” living a happier life with their lavish lifestyles it makes you think you need that. But, almost all of them are spending money they don’t have just to show that they can live that lifestyle, when in fact they cannot. Because, they’ve fallen prey to that idea. That you need all those things, when in fact you can live just fine without them.

I think it’s good practice to train yourself to have self-control. But, to believe that self-control alone will help you overcome those tempting things is wishful thinking.

For example, if I say: Do not eat this sweet.

You will have no trouble doing that because you cannot have this specific sweet, because this sweet is just a picture.

Now, if I say: Do not eat sweets. Period. Yet, if I present you with pictures of sweets constantly.

You might be tempted to pick up a cake pop the next time you go to Starbucks or a baklava in any Greek restaurant or whatever place of your choosing to pick up food or dine in. Why is that? because the images play with your innate sense of desire.

What begins to happen? You now have that image in your mind of a sweet. And, although you are not supposed to eat it, that image is now in your mind and therefore it begins to harbor a desire to actually eat a sweet. Your favorite sweet, whichever sweet that may be. Because that sweet is ever-present. Because the very task of having a sweet before you and, it, now being in your mind, starts to turn that sweet in your mind into a desire. But we know all this already. So, how about we go more personal.

Many suffer from the habit of watching pornography, be it in literature form, pictures, or audio pornography. I say suffer because there are many reasons why pornography is damaging, but we won’t get into that. But, I’ll mention this; pornography makes one objectify the opposite sex. One starts to view the opposite sex as sex objects. It degrades human beings.

What’s more is that, although, like the sweet, you may not have the person in the video or image or even in that reading material, that you are viewing, in front of you, to carry out the desire, but you still begin to desire that very act. Or you begin to desire someone that looks like the person in those videos or images or reading material. And, you also begin to want to carry out those acts.

And what happens? A desire begins to form and, like mal in Inception, your reality becomes a dream. Where you grow a desire to have what you are not supposed to. Because, you were lead to believe you needed that. The idea was planted deep in your mind by those images.

But, what if your spouse doesn’t want to carry out those acts, because she finds them degrading. Now your mind begins to desire to carry out those acts with a stronger desire. And thus, that person at work or at the grocery store or friend of your wife’s becomes the object of your desire, because you’ve fed that sexual desire to have sex with someone who is not your wife or husband. This, in turn, leads…to adultery.

This applies even to single people, because those images become engraved in your mind and they carry over into relationships. As a matter of fact, it can even make it difficult to nurture healthy relationships, because it makes it difficult to see someone for who they really are, because before you even get the chance to get to know them, you’ve already objectified them as a sex object.

So, what must you do?

Eliminate.

Remove the very thing that is harboring habits that are hurting you. Don’t test your force of will or self-control, thinking you are strong enough to resist it. That is wishful thinking.

You ARE strong. But, as human beings, our emotions can betray us. We must not forget that as strong as our willpower or powers of self-control may be, we are ultimately, imperfect. We must recognize our own human limitations.

So, how do you do it?

Don’t accept invitations or advances.

When you sense that that person at work or friend that is not your spouse begins to display romantic gestures or interest, immediately cut it off. Be firm. Even cold. If they give you a gift simply say, “no thank you.” You may think you are being rude. But you are not. They will live. And besides, their interest was something they wanted that you are not supposed to give away. Your loyalty. So it’s not like you robbed them of anything. That’s why it’s ok to say no. Especially when that gift is a direct display of any romantic gesture, say, flowers, tickets to an event for just the both of yall and so on.

Place a picture of your spouse or family on your desk. This will discourage any would be suitor from approaching you with any romantic intents. They know that if they act boldly despite the picture of your spouse and family, society will tell them they are shameless.

This leads to a second point.

Think of the repercussions.

What about the other habits? Like pornography? While we cannot eliminate our phone use, we can definitely think of another thing. And that is:

Consequences.

Stopping to think about the consequences of our actions can help us to avoid a lot of the pitfalls that come with viewing pornography, like infidelity. This applies to any aspect of our lives not just viewing material that is innapropriate. For example, bad spending habits or bad time management.

If we think about how our actions will affect our wallets, family and time, it can stop us from even considering doing something that can damage our well being, even happiness.

When you start desiring someone that is not your wife or husband, don’t focus on the feeling or the satisfaction you will get out of it. Think, that for only a few moments of pleasure you mar a clean conscience. You ruin the trust others have in you and if you have kids, the traumatic experience you will put them through, which can have lasting consequences that can affect them for the rest of their lives.

Also, something else to see is, the fact that that new person might not even stay for long, and the distrust you will both have on each other that stemmed from the very act that got the both of you in that situation, and the sad outcome at the end; that you will eventually be...

Alone.

Do the same for those other things. Cut the credit cards in half. Buy that box with a lock and timer on the lid and place those cigarettes inside them.

But, sometimes you may find that despite all of this you still fail. Why is that?

Because of the people you allow into your lives. If your friends like to drink, smoke or talk about other women, even though they are married, then maybe it’s time to cut those associations, too.

This principle is very similar to those that people use when they want to reach a goal. Say, like, body builders.

Body builders surround themselves with people who love doing the same thing. Because, they know that if they keep surrounding themselves with people who have a sedentary physical lifestyle they will be discouraged from hitting the gym and, instead, their friends will pressure them to come over for a drink or to go out and eat, instead.

I’m not saying delete these friends from your lives solely for that. I’m simply saying that these body builders surrounded themselves with people that push them to be the greatest version of themselves.

So, do just that. If your friends smoke, then eliminate those friends. Because, if not, you will find it easy to smoke and if you continue smoking there is a high possibility you will get cancer. That may sound harsh but, remember about the consequences. And, do something opposite also, think about the benefits you will also gain. This will help you to have better self-control.

Also, like I mentioned before, surround yourself with people who care about your transformations like genuinely interested friends and family. They will encourage you to become a better version of yourself.

But, ultimately, that transformation is going to come from none other than ourselves.

We have to decide when to stop with the hurtful things in our lives. When we do, only then will we reap the rewards of all of our hardwork.

Eliminate the problem and you’ll come to find that not matter what comes your way you’ll be able to overcome it.

Thank you for reading! I hope this helps some or if the very least, just one person.