Why is it, when you promise yourself not to do something...

[dorktv]

then you go and do it?

[mykpart]

1. I don't have a clue,

but since no one was answering your thread, I thought I would take pity on you.

[dorktv]

2. that rhymed. Thanks by the way.

[MissHoneychurch]

3. Because we are weak

and deep down we want to do it anyway.

[LaurenG]

4. It is too seductive to stop and there is a payoff involved

and I am usually not ready to quit whatever it is. Oh and I must like setting myself up to on some level. :evilgrin: :bounce: :hi: Who knows really?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

5. If you didn't have to promise yourself not to do it

there wouldn't be a reason to make the promise in the first place. It's obviously something that you are already inclined to do, so you're fighting that.

[anarch]

6. well that depends on what it is you're talking about not doing

For instance, I promised myself I wouldn't eat any rocks...and so far, I'm showing excellent self-control.

[azmouse]

7. I can resist anything but temptation. -Oscar Wilde

I never resist temptation because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.
-George Bernard Shaw

There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.
-James Branch Cabell

Those who flee temptation generally leave a forwarding address.
-Lane Olinghouse

I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.
-Mae West

There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.
-Mark Twain

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.
-Oscar Wilde

Why comes temptation, but for man to meet and master and crouch beneath his foot, and so be pedestaled in triumph?
-Robert Browning

Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch.
-Robert Orben

It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.
-Walter Bagehot

[liontamer]

8. because by the time you have to promise yourself not to do it

you already know you're going to do it