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3. ‘Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way:’ Myth or Reality?

“Where there's a will, there’s a way” – a seductive notion that glosses over a far more complex reality. Drawing on Freud, Lacan and literature, this article dismantles the myth of absolute control and advocates for a humbler, attentive understanding of the human psyche.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way” – most of us have grown up hearing it, whether at home, in school, or later in the workplace. It’s become so familiar that we rarely question it, repeating it like a modern mantra. But beneath its motivational appeal lies one of the more damaging myths of our time. It implies that sheer willpower can conquer all – that determination alone is enough to overcome obstacles and weakness. In the process, it erases something essential: the complexity of the human experience.

It dismisses everything Freud, Lacan and the many psychoanalysts who followed have brought to light: the existence of the unconscious – those hidden, active forces that shape our behavior far more than our conscious intentions ever could. In a culture obsessed with performance and self-optimization, denying this complexity strips the individual of their depth, reducing them to a consumable, endlessly malleable product. The upbeat slogan of positivism – “Anything is possible if you just try hard enough” – leaves only guilt in its wake for those who fall short.

As early as 1917, Freud identified what he called the three narcissistic wounds inflicted on humanity in his essay A Difficulty in Psychoanalysis. The first two stemmed from the discoveries of Copernicus and Darwin. The third – and most personal – came from psychoanalysis itself, which revealed that “man is not master in his own house.” In other words, we do not control our desires, impulses or choices. Our conscious self is but a fragile island, battered by the drives of the id and the demands of the superego. The belief in the all-powerful will is therefore an illusion. Our dreams, slips of the tongue, forgotten actions and symptoms clearly bear witness to an unconscious mental life over which will has no sway.

Later, in 1920, Freud expanded on these ideas in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, demonstrating that the compulsion to repeat drives individuals to relive the same – sometimes traumatic – situations despite their conscious efforts to avoid them. Symptoms and neuroses stand as undeniable proof of this powerless struggle.

Lacan took these ideas even further. For him, the subject is fundamentally split by language. No matter how hard we try, we can never fully express ourselves. Before we become subjects, we are already bound by language – and as soon as we begin to speak, we do so using words that existed before us. This creates a deep fracture. Where Freud famously said, “Where id was, there ego shall be,” Lacan countered, “I think where I am not, therefore I am where I do not think.” In other words, the “I” and the “self” are not one and the same.

The ego is shaped by images and others, but the “I” belongs to the unconscious. We like to think our words, choices and desires are truly our own – yet they’re deeply influenced by an Other: language and the unconscious mind. The self is always marked by a sense of lack, a gap, an absence. Wanting something doesn’t automatically make us its true owner. The subject of desire is always out of reach, never fully found in the things the world puts in front of us.

In Psychoanalysis and Everyday Life, psychoanalyst Jacques André emphasizes that we are influenced more than we actively influence. Unconscious forces are not secondary – they are fundamental. They govern both our impulses and our blockages. By insisting that everything depends solely on our will, we risk blaming individuals for their failures without truly listening to the resistance within.

The coaching and self-improvement culture operates in much the same way: it pathologizes vulnerability, urging individuals to “push harder,” “step beyond their comfort zones,” and “desire success more intensely,” encouraging a mindset that anything is possible. Yet failure is rarely due to a lack of will; it often results from a will that is obstructed, sometimes even undermining itself. For instance, the “positive attitude” promoted in schools, workplaces and elsewhere overlooks essential psychological realities: a struggling student may be told they simply “did not want to succeed enough,” while their difficulties may in fact stem from unconscious childhood conflicts.

The notion of the “impossible” to achieve – often accompanied by the message, “If you can’t succeed, it’s because you didn’t want it enough” – locks individuals into a persistent sense of guilt, all the while avoiding any critical examination of the psychological, political or economic processes that underlie this very powerlessness.

Psychoanalyst Roland Gori further illustrates how this logic is deeply rooted in neoliberal rationality. In The Fabrication of Impostors, he portrays a world where individuals are compelled to be high-performing, happy and “resilient.” The demand for well-being replaces attention to underlying distress. The superficial is enforced, while the latent is denied. Yet the unconscious does not disappear; it shifts and surfaces through symptoms such as burnout, anxiety and addiction. Under the relentless pressure to succeed, the subject often crumbles beneath the weight of this tyrannical demand.

Long before psychoanalysis, literature had already revealed the fractures within human will. In Oedipus Rex, Sophocles depicts a hero determined to escape his fate, only to find himself led back to the very destiny he sought to avoid. It is an unconscious desire for knowledge that compels him to confront the horror of his origins. Willpower fails because the subject lacks true self-awareness.

In Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky portrays Raskolnikov as a man convinced he can commit murder through pure rationality. He believes his mind grants him mastery over his actions. Yet the act drags him into feverish torment, guilt and a fractured sense of self. Far from shielding him, willpower becomes a blind instrument of the unconscious.

In The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka deepens the exploration of powerlessness. Gregor Samsa awakens transformed into a monstrous insect, completely deprived of any capacity for will. His body takes over, speaking for him. His longing to obey his family manifests as a form of punishment. Willpower proves futile against this emergence of the formless.

In The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein, Marguerite Duras portrays a woman stunned and immobilized by an unspeakable trauma. She neither wills nor resists; she wanders, haunted by a buried memory that governs her every move. Her will is frozen, shattered by the violent intrusion of an unbearable reality.

And what of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary? Emma longs for love, grandeur and romance – a yearning fueled by fierce intensity. Yet it is precisely this overwhelming, violent desire that drives her toward failure and death. Her desire is not synonymous with her will; it is made up of identifications, voids and repetitions. She dreams of an elsewhere beyond her understanding. Ultimately, her will proves powerless.

These literary figures each reveal, in their own way, that the human subject cannot be reduced to mere willpower. What drives or hinders us often stems from an unfamiliar, hidden place. Wanting is not the same as being able; rather, it means confronting an opaque, deeply personal boundary beyond our control. The work of analysis is precisely to listen to these resistances, to name them, and to work through them – not to become more efficient, but to arrive at authentic speech and singular desire.

While today’s culture clings to the idea that “anything is possible,” psychoanalysis reminds us of a simple truth: we are driven by powerful and often conflicting internal forces. It is by facing them – painfully, uncertainly – that something truly meaningful can emerge, and that we begin to free ourselves from the illusion of control. Instead of clinging to “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” we might say instead, “I try, while remaining open to the unknown within me.” A humbler, more honest way to learn what it means to be human.