Ezra Klein

And I've had people in my life who struggle with alcoholism.

And I don't have willpower they don't.

Something is happening in their bodies or in their minds that is not happening in mine.

And I've always thought the way we blame people for this is so cruel because it is so often people who don't have willpower.

The propulsive desire, blaming people who do for not exercising willpower, but those people aren't exercising willpower.

I'm not exercising willpower to not have more cigarettes.

I don't want them.

So you have this interplay of biology, neurobiology, as you're saying it, this thing we call willpower, which is a very poorly specified concept, and then environment.

To me, this question of environment is really important.

I'll use myself as the example.

You know, when I lost a lot of weight, I mean, when I was younger, a lot younger, I was a

high school student with nothing to do.

And I was able to really, really hold that when I was a young adult.

And I have not been able to diet successfully since I had kids because I can't control the food environment.

And there's a lot of other things I can control.

I have money.

I can go to the gym.

I have a certain amount of autonomy over my schedule.

So as you say, when you add in things like the night shift, when you add in not having the money to get healthy foods or go to the gym, when you add in having more kids or less time, willpower works very, very differently when you're able to have the autonomy or the money to

to create a certain kind of environment around you that is conducive to living in a certain way, right?