For this reason Scripture warns us, Pursue not your lusts Sirach 18:30. (Rule of St. Benedict 7.25)
We live in a culture where it’s supposed to be fun to let yourself go. People announce that they’re about to let themselves go, and then they do it. Not only do they not feel shame: they expect you to pat them on the back. Most of the time they act with good humor, and with no thought of harming themselves or anyone else. The binge is benign these days.
Until it’s not. The fact is that we have countless people who are suffering the tragic consequences of their own impulses–or worse, of someone else’s. Some of them refuse to admit responsibility. But others are discouraged, because they’ve tried and failed to change.
Self-control is not an instant thing. It’s the work of a lifetime. It’s the practice of a life well-lived.
If you want to be an athlete or an artist or any sort of skilled worker, you start at the beginning and practice basic moves first. Checking your own impulse is one of the most basic moves of all. It’s an element of any future action. It’s not just that refraining from one action frees up time and energy for an alternative. Curbing your impulse also builds strength and skill. These in turn open up new possibilities that would otherwise have remained out of reach.
A century of Freudian psychology has led us to assume that checking an impulse means repressing desire. When you repress a desire, you don’t act on it, but it comes out in some other, weird way that you don’t control and that you may not even be aware of. So you might as well let yourself go.
Suffering the consequences? That’s someone else’s specialty. Next, please.
The difference between self-control and repression is that self-control does not suppress desire. Self-control nurtures and trains desire. While the binge lets desire loose, without regard for other people, self-control keeps desire on a leash and exercises it with consideration for others.
The lure of the binge is easy pleasure fast. But the thrill tends to decrease with repetition. You work harder to get less. And you suffer the side effects. With self-control, on the other hand, you start small, but the enjoyment increases with practice. And the horizons are infinite.
The best the binge can claim is not to have harmed anyone else. But self-control allows you to do good to others actively.
People who can’t control their impulses only get along with others who want to do the same thing at the same time in the same way. When a whole collection of individuals are all out of control together, they meld into a mob. The mob tramples any divergent individual. But then the frenzy burns out, and the mob disperses. The same individuals go back to competing ruthlessly against each other. They separate, each alone with an ungoverned desire. The endpoint is a life without any relationships at all: just interactions that serve the appetite.
But self-control allows you to live in community. Christian community aims not to meld but to harmonize individual desires. It’s a complex challenge, but by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we do make a life together. This calls for active participation on the part of each one, rather than a passive letting go.
Life in a family is a training ground for harmony. Baby learns to sleep at night long enough for Mom to get the rest she needs. Baby learns to go for longer without eating, so that eventually the child’s habits match the habits of the family. In practice this effort takes years, and every time a new baby arrives, another individual process is thrown into the mix. Easy is not part of the deal.
But the endpoint is paradise, which Jesus describes as a banquet Matthew 22:1-14; 25:1-13. A banquet is a fancy dinner where people dress their best, eat together and enjoy each other’s company. When you have a family sitting down to a meal together, you have a foretaste of heaven. The food may be simple. The clamor around your table may not sound divine. But consider what you’ve achieved: you’ve taken human beings from a state of chaos to a state of sociability. Even if it’s not yet heaven, it is the foundation of civil society, and that’s something no one should take for granted.
Ultimately: heaven. Here and now: a functioning society. Earliest of all: a family meal. But it all begins with harmonizing individual impulses. And so, each one of us must achieve a measure of self-control.
