Life is characterised by growth and reproduction, spontaneous actions and possibly, consciousness. Let us consider action.
Action is spontaneous, as observed by a spectator and willful as observed by the doer.
Consider your finger. Hold it in front of you and flex and extend it. You just have to 'will' it to move and it moves. Certain cells in the cerebral motor cortex are stimulated in an orderly manner to set up electrical potentials along the specific nerves that stimulate the muscles to move the finger. No such site which can start a particular action at 'will', through connections to the whole brain like an all-covering blanket, has been identified.