Deadly Sins Part One
One
Pride
The vice against temperance is, surprise surprise, intemperance, which rears its ugly head in our lives in the form of pride and the seven deadly sins. The vice of pride is a sin against temperance, as it exaggerates one’s own importance. Everyone is guilty of at least some degree of pride and the following list (compiled by St. Josemaria Escriva) is a good criterion for locating your dominant form of pride or vanity:
“Thinking that what you do or say is better than what others do or say; always wanting to get your own way; arguing when you are not right; arguing when you are right but with bad manners or insisting stubbornly; giving your opinion without being asked, when charity does not demand you to do so; despising the point of view of others; not being aware that all the gifts and qualities you have are on loan (from God); not acknowledging that you are unworthy of all honor or esteem, even the ground you are treading on or the things you own; mentioning yourself as an example in conversation; speaking badly about yourself, so that others may form a good opinion of you; making excuses when rebuked; being hurt that others are held in greater esteem than you; refusing to carry out menial tasks; seeking or wanting to be singled out; dropping words of self-praise in conversation, or words that might show your honesty or wit or skill or professional prestige; being ashamed of not having certain possessions.”
These characteristics are all symptoms of exulting one’s own identity to the detriment of the other goods. It is very humbling to reflect on one’s own pride, but hopefully, that reflection can lead to the amendment of excessive self-assertion and even excessive self-consciousness.
Two
Vanity
Vanity is the disordered concern for self-image. It’s the vice of caring too much about what other people think. Especially people who aren’t close with us. So many of us care more about what strangers think of us than the people who really know us.
We are tempted to give more energy to being liked or esteemed by colleagues or competitors or strangers or posting on social media – instead of putting real effort into talking and listening to our spouse or our kids, our elderly parents or getting a coffee with a friend.
Why do we care so much about what other people think? Because praise is supposed to be directed to some excellence – it’s natural for us to praise, to esteem excellent things and excellent people. But to receive praise just for the sake of praise is completely empty.
So, it is not praise that we should seek. We should strive to become excellent humans. People who are virtuous, who excel in their duties and responsibilities.
We should strive for what is honorable rather than honor. Then, if we are praised, we say thank you and thank God. That’s why Aquinas says that the truly virtuous person – the magnanimous person – doesn’t care about doing what will get praised, but about doing what is praiseworthy.
Three
Envy
We can use achievements and attributes of others to spur ourselves on to pursue them (e.g., St. Mother Teresa’s joy can be an inspiration for me to work at being cheerful in all circumstances), but envy is “sadness at the sight of another’s goods and immoderate desire to acquire them for oneself, even unjustly.” Now there are two sides to the envy coin: a) sadness at someone else’s good. If the success or blessings of your friend, family member, neighbor, or even competitor displeases you, it is clear you suffer to some degree from envy; b) pleasure at someone else’s evil. A lot of people may act like well-wishers, but they seem to really thrive on bad news, and they certainly delight in repeating any misfortune – especially scandals – that happen to their friends and families. If you’re in that camp, then you definitely have an envy problem.
If we love our neighbor, we’ll be united with him in love, and then we’ll see every good thing for him as a good thing for ourselves. As C.S. Lewis wrote, God “wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another.” This is a difficult ideal, but it is the ideal we have to reach for if we want to avoid the unhappiness of the green-eyed monster.
Four
Sloth
Finally, we come to the vice of sloth. This is more than just being a “couch potato.” It’s most powerfully represented by acedia, which is “boredom or sadness regarding spiritual or interior good.” As Pieper says of the slothful man, “He would prefer to be less great in order to avoid the obligation of greatness.” The person who suffers from sloth wishes that God hadn’t asked him to be a child of God, because of the effort it demands: “Why couldn’t God have left me alone? Holiness/virtue/heroism/excellence is really hard!”
Now, we may be guilty of sloth in this sense, even if we appear to be very busy. Our constant activity can really be a distraction, to keep us from doing those things that will really bring us into union with God. After all, there’s nothing more difficult than trying to perfect ourselves and grow in holiness.
Think of a teacher who tells all the students in the room to write a two-page paper in an hour. Then imagine that one of the students appears to be writing much more than any of the others, he’s studiously bent over his desk in concentration, writing furiously for the entire hour. But when the time is up, the teacher looks at that student’s work and sees that all the student has done is cover the two pages in doodles. The teacher accuses the boy of laziness, for even though he appeared to be busy, he was really doing something much easier than what he was supposed to be working on. So too, we can be lazy in spiritual matters, if we use worldly things to distract us, no matter how busy we may seem.
And how much more shameful it is if we waste all our time on activities that even the world recognizes as trivial: smartphones, movie players, home televisions, car radios, cell phones, and video games. We’re perpetually bombarded with services designed for our personal amusement. This isn’t surprising; as we’ll see when we get to the section on hope and despair, those of us who aren’t pursuing holiness and virtue know we’re failing at life, and we’re desperately seeking some kind of distraction so we don’t have to think about it.
Five
Relaxing or an evil use of time?
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with certain forms of entertainment, in moderation. In which case the main question is: Is our entertainment destructive instead of edifying? Do we look at pornography or a bunch or gratuitous violence or get involved in celebrity gossip? We all know this kind of trash doesn’t refresh or renew us; we always feel more depleted afterward, with a nasty taste in our mouths. Other areas of entertainment, not evil in themselves, are nonetheless very susceptible to taking too much of our focus and can steal time from things we should be doing. For example, there may be nothing wrong with watching a football game every now and then, but it better not become an obsession or detract from religious and family obligations (the reason a lot of people give for missing Sunday mass is “sports”). The same is true of concern with news, and staying up to date on international affairs (most of which we don’t need to know about and can’t do anything about anyway). Or do we become addicted to low-grade entertainment: mediocre movies, fantasy games, inane sitcoms, soap operas, poor quality songs we’ve heard a hundred times? Do we use these things to just kill time, to waste the precious moments we’ve been given to acquire virtue and gain happiness?
Sure we need to be able to take a break, relax, and engage in some stress-relieving activity. But that activity should be worthwhile, not morally offensive or a simple frittering away of time. Further, whatever leisure we pursue, temperance demands that we not become addicted to it to the point of failing to meet the other obligations of life.