Have the terms willpower and positive thinking become arbitrary labels which are used to explain success, failure or motivation when no other logical explanation presents itself?
Is Lance Armstrong’s fall from grace testament to this?
What do we mean when we describe acts of bravery, like those of soldiers at the Battle of the Somme, as extreme measures of willpower?
Smile or Die: has the self-help culture of the late 20th and early 21st century developed an attitude that positive thinking can overcome any problem, whether it be loosing weight, finding love, or beating cancer?
What light does Friedrich Nietzsche’s “will to power” shed on contemporary ideas of motivation and success?
Is humanity a struggle for dominance where the strongest willed individuals exploit the weak and the foreign through appropriation, injury, and overpowering?
If “life simply is the will to power” do we actually have any way of controlling, training or improving our will?
Does the answer to this question explain whether willpower and positive thinking have become arbitrary terms which have no tangible or practical meaning?