&quot;Willing&quot; has different meanings.  <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.merriam-webster.com&#x2F;thesaurus&#x2F;willing" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.merriam-webster.com&#x2F;thesaurus&#x2F;willing</a> lists three of them.<p>People will use the term &quot;willing&quot; to mean #3: &quot;done, made, or given with one&#x27;s own free will&quot;.<p>I&#x27;m willing to work a part-time job flipping burgers to make ends meet. I&#x27;m willing to come home smelling like grease in order to have a home.<p>On the other hand, I might not be willing to do so because it&#x27;s beneath me, and would rather live in car and live off my small winnings from playing poker. Another way to cast this is that I&#x27;m willing to live in my car in order to preserve my dignity.<p>No matter what happens, there&#x27;s a Panglossian way to construct it such that I&#x27;m &quot;willing&quot; to do whatever I ended up doing. Which makes that definition meaningless in this context.<p>I instead interpret &quot;willing&quot; to mean something more like #2: &quot;having or showing the ability to respond without delay or hesitation.&quot;<p>In this context, I use it more like &quot;willing to work in the job as-is, without significant complaint or protest&quot;. Compare &quot;I&#x27;m looking for a volunteer&quot; vs. &quot;I&#x27;m looking for a willing volunteer&quot;, or &quot;lend a hand&quot; vs. &quot;lend a willing hand.&quot; A volunteer may lend a reluctant hand, but still be a volunteer.<p>People of their own free will (definition 3) are working at job where they&#x27;ve had to stop (definition 2), think about if they want to do it, and work on ways to make it more worthwhile.