There is a will that operates twenty-four hours a day that is for you, and a will that operates twenty-four hours a day that is against you. You’re familiar with the will that works against you. It’s that will that drags you into internally and externally unprofitable, self-punishing moments. The will that works for you is that which forever says, “Look up. See that there is more to your life than what you presently embrace and that’s causing you this pain.” Put even more simply, the will that wants to raise you up is the will that makes it clear to you that there’s another will that’s trying to pull you down. Were it not for that elevating will, you would never recognize the harmful one.

If indeed it is true that there is a will that is trying to pull you down as well as a will that is trying to pull you up, how do either of these wills come to have power over you? How do they take hold of you to either pull you down or to help you up and out?

The fact is that you do have free will — in a sense. The free will you have is in the choice you make to align yourself with either the will that is ascending or the will that is descending.

Picture a hand reaching from below to pull you down, and another hand reaching from above to pull you up. At any moment (even now while you’re reading this), your hand is either in the hand of the will that is ascending, or it’s in the hand of the will that is descending — and it’s your choice. Don’t fall for the lie that says, “No, it’s not my choice because I have to get depressed, I have to get angry, I have to get frightened.” No, you don’t. It’s the voice of deception that accompanies the hand from below that insists you have no choice. In fact, you always have the choice.