The four inner forces that overpower your values in real time

Last week we described a familiar problem. We care about honesty, patience, and self control. We genuinely want to live that way. Yet in ordinary moments, we often do not.

Consider a simple situation.

You are speaking with someone close to you. A spouse, a coworker, or a friend. The conversation shifts. They say something dismissive or unfair. You feel it immediately. Your body tightens. Your thoughts speed up.

At that moment you still know your values. You know staying calm would be better. You know raising your voice will not help. You may even know you will regret what you are about to say.

And then you say it anyway.

Afterward you explain it to yourself. “They were wrong.” “They pushed me.” “I had to respond.”

But if you are honest, the explanation never fully satisfies you. You did not carefully choose anger. Something happened faster than your choice.

In that moment several inner drives appeared at once.

First came self centeredness. The entire situation became about you. Not about understanding, not about the relationship, not about truth. About being disrespected and restoring your position. The world narrowed to how you were being treated.

Then came distraction. You stopped hearing the other person clearly. Your mind replayed past incidents, imagined motives, and built a case. You were no longer responding to the present moment but to a story forming inside your head.

Then came lethargy. Not physical laziness, but a resistance to effort. The work required to pause, think, and restrain yourself suddenly felt heavy. Reaction felt easy. Restraint felt exhausting.

Finally came pleasure seeking. Anger carries a strange reward. For a moment it feels powerful. It releases tension and produces a sharp sense of certainty. Even while part of you knows it is a mistake, another part of you wants the relief of saying the words.

By the time you spoke, your values had not disappeared. They had been overrun in real time.

This is why the pattern keeps repeating. Afterward we apologize and we mean it. We think it through and sincerely decide to handle it differently next time. But the next situation does not arrive while we are calmly reflecting. It arrives suddenly, under pressure, and the same forces take over again.

So the real issue is not whether we have values. The issue is whether our values have enough strength to operate in real time against our four powerful inner drives.

What would actually make them strong enough to hold?

That is what we need to understand next.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)