When John Kennedy was a small boy, he attended an exclusive private school in Boston where the children were required to wear a uniform. Those uniforms mattered greatly to the boys, and if anything happened to them — especially to their caps — they would be in serious trouble.

The children would walk home from school together, and on their way stood a wall that was almost impossible to climb. As the boys tried to scramble over it, they would dare one another: “I bet you can’t climb it! I bet you can’t do it!” One day, John Kennedy simply grabbed his cap and flung it over the wall. He knew he could not go home without that cap — which meant that, having thrown it over, he would have to climb the wall to get it back.

Do you see what he was doing? By throwing his cap over the wall, John Kennedy had made up his mind. To stay out of trouble he had to retrieve the cap before going home, so he was committed — and with that commitment he had resolved to get over the wall. Once the cap was on the other side, he knew he would climb.

It is a fine example of how instinctively children can reach the higher levels of their own willpower. Of course, at that age John was not reasoning it through so deeply. And yet — he threw his cap over the wall.