My Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life

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May 1, 2010
22 Comment

“Natural Inclinations Are Assisted…By Education, But They Are Hardly Ever Altered or Overcome.”

Montaigne

“Natural inclinations are assisted and reinforced by education, but they are hardly ever altered or overcome.”
– Montaigne

Do you agree or disagree? I agree, and I think about this quotation all the time, usually in the context of making decisions about my children’s time — that’s why, in the end, I let my daughter quit Tae Kwon Do, instead of making her stick to it.

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  1. “Natural Inclinations…Are Hardly Ever Altered or Overcome.”
  • http://familyreadyplan.blogspot.com/ stephan f-

    Most of the education process should be about finding your child’s natural inclinations, of course that is not how school works.
    If it doesn’t click and isn’t essential (say reading, math, cooking, driving, &etc.), drop it and move on. Spending tens of thousands of hours getting good at something you aren’t passionate about is mind-bogglingly wasteful and sad.

    • Pamela B

      Stephan, I basically agree with you–spending 10s of 1,000s of hours getting good at something you’re not passionate about can be a waste of time. However, sometimes a person needs to spend quite a few hours doing something to figure out it is NOT what he wants. Some of us do not have any one passion; therefore, it is has been difficult to know “what I want to do when I grow up.” Well, I’m 55 now and I DO know some things I DON’T want to do because I spent a few months trying them and realized they weren’t what I thought they’d be. I do not consider it a waste of time. More a “process of elimination.” And I know now that I don’t need to find that ONE passion to drive me to do something–I enjoy doing many, many things and am glad to have discovered that that’s OK.

  • R. Wayne (@NeuroShft)

    Hard to disprove. If something fundamental changes in a person as a result of education, we can always claim it was really “natural inclination” all along. If nothing fundamental changes, we can call that “natural inclination” too.

  • http://dufmanno.wordpress.com kelly

    Sadly, I think I push it too much in the other direction.
    Because I had parents that never kept on me about practice or cared about if I quit or not I tend to make sure my kids stay at something. Clearly compensating for the past.
    Hmmm.
    Maybe I should rethink this one.

  • Emily

    Really hard to say. My mother stood over me between the ages of 11 and 15 to make me practice the piano. Fifteen years later, I’ve become a professional singer, and the piano skills paid for tuition and rent through grad school. At that age, I was naturally inclined to do the opposite of whatever she wanted, but ultimately she knew best. Now, I see the opposite in parents of my students – their kids don’t practice, they don’t push them to do so, the kids ultimately ditch piano lessons in favor of field hockey/lacrosse/drama club/take your pick. But I don’t hear a single adult say, “I’m glad I quit music lessons.” Ever.

    • RachelGrey

      I’m glad I quit music lessons. There — now you’ve heard it. :) I enjoyed what I was doing (playing flute) but had reached a point where further improvement would have taken MUCH more consistent work, and I had many other priorities. I’m glad I acted on those instead, and got into the college of my dreams.

    • faith

      me too. i wished i were good at piano. but i wasnt. i might try it again as an adult, but as a preteen it did not do much to my ego to keep trying and failing. i am glad my parents let me stop ( quit has a bad connotation, its not like i had some commitment to the instrument)

  • nielmalan

    I think the quotation is true as it stands, but the usual interpretation (“It is impossible to change yourself”) is not.

    I would agree that natural inclinations are “hardly ever” overcome, but I would not agree that it is because an individual cannot learn skills they don’t have a ‘talent’ for. “Natural inclinations are … hardly ever overcome” because the individual does not find the activity rewarding enough to spend the time necessary to learn the skill.

    Which brings me to the undecideable point: I think it is quite possible that it is the right teacher at the right time that determines how rewarding an activity is.

    Personal examples: If I did not learn to play the piano first (press a button, get a note) but something like the violin that requires listening to pitch, perhaps I would have developed a better feel for producing music. If I had a teacher (and classmates) that did not focus on my non-achievement in sports but on my progress, perhaps I would not have waited until my 30′s before I started getting exercise.

    • jenny_o

      All good points, in my opinion and in my experience.

      My personal example is in my job. I started out doing work that suited my talents and strengths. As time went on, I was asked to try other things, which I found difficult and which did not suit my natural inclinations. However, one of my bosses found ways to encourage me so that I was successful with those things, and although I am still not a “natural”, I enjoy them more and definitely enjoy the feeling of accomplishment.

  • colinjames

    Hi Gretchen
    I agree too, especially if we understand ‘natural inclinations’ with a contemporary scientific view and call it maybe ‘signature strengths’. If we find out what our strengths are, and live within those areas of experience as much as possible, we are likely to be happier, more productive, effective and nicer to know. We can discover our signature strengths via the Authentic Happiness website.
    Thanks! I love your work and your book.
    Colin

  • Jeffrey Frankel

    I remember seeing something about the way President Barak Obama’s mother taught him when they were living in Indonesia. They would get up at some ungodly hour and she would provide him with the basics of an American education. He complained and she said “It’s no picnic for me either”. Maybe he would have become President without that early education and experience. Maybe he had it in him and his mother brought it out or brought it out earlier. We don’t know. If parents are doing things out of love, no matter how difficult it makes the child’s life then it is the right thing to do, even if years later you realise he didn’t have it in him.

  • mitch

    If there was a word that expressed the feeling of frustration, sadness, a pinch of irritation, and acceptance, I would use it here. Has been largely true in my life and has made many attempts at change fruitless. I keep on trying though…

  • Val

    See what some of you are talking about are natural DIS-inclinations.

    Yeah, we can learn things that don’t come to us readily, and even do well and enjoy them. Sometimes it’s even good for us to challenge ourselves like that.

    But natural IN-clinations are another story. Building on those is accomplished much more easily, but even without classes and practice, we still tend toward those things.

    An example, some people like the outdoors and camping. I do not. I can camp, and I have, and have even had fun, but I’d be perfectly content to never go again. But people who love this, LOVE it and that’s not going to change. They’re not going to ever stop loving hiking around, slapping mosquitoes, and cooking on a fire.

    Similarly, I like to read. I’ll even camp if I can bring a book. Nobody had to encourage me to do this. It was as natural to me as breathing.

    Inclinations and dis-inclinations are opposites, and changing inclinations is much more difficult than learning to do things a person is disinclined to do . –Val

    • jenny_o

      A valid distinction. I’m with you on the camping and the reading, by the way!

  • anne

    I’m about to graduate from college, and it’s hard to figure out what my ‘natural inclinations’ are. I spent a long time trying to fit a specific role- A student, play 2 musical instruments, dance, tennis, on and on. I was miserable (suffered from depression)
    I’m still a good student, and I am still musical, but I am much happier now that I’ve realized something: there isn’t one prescribed role/path that fits everyone. I think my good education has helped me understand the value of working hard at something, and I hope that my natural inclinations will help me find the right direction to go so that my hard work is rewarding in the end.

  • http://www.survivingorthrivingnow.com/ TanyaMonteiro

    I’m not sure…..I’m shooting a documentary based on 10 people from around the world that were sexually abused by a family member and are Thriving today. Focus is on the Thriving and how its possible to choose how we want our lives to be. In some ways the natural inclination is to repeat what we learnt as children! I believe or is it that I have to believe that we can become aware of that natural inclination and choose another path?

    • TracyW

      Tanya – have you read The Nurture Assumption by Judith Harris? It argues that most children are socialised by their peers, not their parents, and thus that’s how they learn how to interact with others. Judith Harris is very definite that her hypothesis does not justify parents abusing their children – but argues that’s because we fundamentally shouldn’t harm another thinking feeling human being like that, or, if that’s not reason enough for someone, a parent can wreck their relationship with their children by mistreating them (in bumper sticker terms, “Be nice to your kids, they’ll chose your retirement home.”) And Judith Harris notes that very bad abuse can affect the brain, be that by direct blows or by being awash in stress chemicals for years on end.

      But, if we leave aside those extremes of abuse, she argues plausibly that a child can distinguish between relationships, eg babies whose mothers suffer from post-natal depression will interact cheerfully with babysitters who are not depressed. So a child sexually abused by a family member, but accepted by a peer group, would, by this theory, be likely to do fine as an adult.

  • http://damoc.ro/ Peter Damoc

    Socionics makes a distinction between what constitutes a “persona” and “natura” of a person. Persona can be changed dramatically through practice and education. Natura is constant.

    You can train an introvert to be more outgoing, less shy, etc. but you will never train him to prefer interacting with new people over spending time by themselves.

    Same with the rest of the dichotomies, you can train a slob to be neater but at the first opportunity he will get, he will revert to being a slob. :) He can train to simplify his environment and to avoid the typical mess associated with being a slob BUT he will never align things because he likes them aligned. His peace will not come from order.

  • Terryd35

    That’s a very interesting quote and thought provoking question. At first I thought I would disagree, however, after re-reading and re-reading it I decided I do agree.

    I believe our natural inclinations can be altered or overcame, as Montaigne points out, but that they hardly ever are! As we educate ourselves we change, but we also remain the same and that same I believe would relate to our natural inclinations. Most times we use our knowledge to enhance our existing inclinations, making them safer, more fun, etc…

    Interesting!

  • http://richardshelmerdine.com/blog/ Richard Shelmerdine

    Mothers day is a different day in England isn’t it? I really hope it is. I swear we had ours in March. Nice quote by the way. It does confuse me a little though.

  • Anita

    Has anyone seen this Ted Talk?
    http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html
    Interesting talk … it basically said that liberals and conservatives have different natural inclinations and that we should stop arguing about topics that are driven by these, as we can’t change the other group’s opinions.

  • Kristin

    Nice article

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