Hello Susan,
Excellent question, you must have come across this idea from my videos. What I understand from studying and learning from my experiences that it appears that free-will is the norm. We are aware of our desires, which is, I want this, I want that, I desire to love, I desire to hate, and etc. However, what is actually occurring is that we are aware of our desires but unaware of the causes of our desires.
I know this is confusing, fortunately, with some mental and emotional effort this will become clearer to you. Example: You may have decided to go to lunch with a friend and you mentally planned to have a health tuna salad and soup but when the waiter came for your order you decided that you wanted a burger, fries and a coke. Much later, you feel guilty of your choices because you really wanted to stick with healthy eating habits.
Why do we go against our wishes? It’s because we don’t understand the root causes of what motivates us. In our school, a part of growth is to understand the essential causes of our desires and in this effort to understand we gain emotional and intelligence power then, in time you’ll become conscious of your desires and where do they take you.
The goal is to become a Master-of-Oneself,
Lewis