Decision under favorable conditions is relatively easy. The will is supported by energy, by clarity, and by the absence of strong counter-pressure. Decision in weakness is the real test. Weakness here means the state in which the ordinary supports of the will have been reduced: fatigue, hunger, emotional residue, the after-effect of conflict, or the simple accumulation of ordinary demands. In that state the lower nature presses hardest for exemption.
The age teaches the young man to treat weakness as a temporary disability that justifies the suspension of standards. That teaching is convenient for dissolution. The differentiated individual refuses the exemption. He continues to apply the permanent measure even when the internal resources that normally support it are low. The decision is often smaller in scale than the decisions made in strength. Its significance is greater because it occurs against the current of the lower nature at its strongest.
Young men frequently wait for a return of strength before resuming the standard. That waiting is itself a decision to suspend the measure. The higher type does not wait. He makes the required decision with the resources that are present. The quality of the decision may be imperfect. The fact of the decision under the measure is what preserves the continuity of the type.
When weakness arrives, identify the next small decision that the permanent standard requires and make it. Do not postpone. Do not negotiate the terms. The capacity to decide correctly while depleted is one of the clearest proofs that the intensification has begun to take permanent form.