You’ve heard of the seven deadly sins? Well, they are deadly no longer. With the (relatively) simple techniques listed below each of the “deadly” sins, you will reduce their damaging power. Once you have mastered the techniques, the once deadly sins will be only slightly injurious.
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Lust
Lust is actually one of the easiest sins to reduce in power. All it requires is that you picture how you will feel one week after you actually achieve whatever it is you lust after. Lust is purely a desire for things, and things never truly fulfill desires. It is often driven by the temptation of forbidden fruit. Once you picture having had what it is you’re lusting after for a week, the intense feelings of lust are likely to fade away (assuming that you actually get your mind PAST the point of achieving the desire).
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Gluttony
The solution for the sin of gluttony is actually very similar to the one for lust. Lust and gluttony are very closely related… lust is strong desire for one thing (this can include people… when they are the object of lust, you are viewing them as things, not people), where gluttony is strong desire to have one thing (see note above) over and over until the point that it is all used up or you have had so much of it that more will make you sick. The solution is basically the same, but not so distant in the future. Imagine how you would feel at the point that you have completely stuffed yourself (either literally, in the case of food, or figuratively if your gluttony applies to something else), and then being forced to do whatever it is five more times. It will most likely make you sick at the thought of even doing it once.
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Greed
Greed is not quite so easy, though it’s certainly not impossible. It, too, is related to lust, but it is a lust after more and more things, rather than after one thing, or after one thing repeatedly like gluttony. This one is more difficult because it involves changing the way you look at things. In order to beat greed, you have to take a look at what actually brings you enjoyment. If you are honest with yourself, you’ll find that having things never brings long term enjoyment. It is the journey toward achieving goals (such as having this or that) that brings more long term enjoyment and fulfillment… but if you only focus on the having this or that, you’re throwing away the enjoyment of the way there. Greed never leaves you happy, because as soon as you achieve one thing, you become greedy for the next.
A simple technique to learn this different mindset is to write down every night what three things brought you the most enjoyment, made you the most happy that day. If you continue this for any length of time, not only will it make you happier (as you realize there are good things every day), but you will notice that “things” rarely end up on your list, with it being far more likely that experiences vastly outnumber things.
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Sloth
Sloth, or laziness is hard to banish but it is easy to remove the sting. Sloth can easily be countered by learning two new habits: first, find a place for everything to, as I usually put it, “live”, and second, take care of every task you can as soon as you become aware of it.
Having a place where everything “lives” means having a place where that specific thing, like your keys, or that type of thing, like bills, go any time you’re not actively using them. This virtually eliminates lost keys, misplaced (and therefore late) bills, etc. It keeps where you live and where you work relatively neat and tidy, and makes it easy for you to find what you’re looking for quickly when needed.
The other half of this, completing tasks as soon as you become aware of them, does away with the laziness part of sloth. I, personally, am a procrastinator by nature. I have generally removed the detrimental effects of this on my life by not allowing myself to put off tasks at all. That means not even for a few minutes, and especially not until the next day. If I put it off a little bit, then it’s easy to keep putting it off. This is also true for getting up out of bed in the morning, from my experience… if you get up immediately when you wake up, you are alert immediately, and have no problem functioning. If you delay, hitting the snooze button, it makes it harder to get up, even if you purposely allow yourself thirty minutes for this “waking up” time.
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Wrath
Wrath, generally referred to as rage today, is essentially very nearly mindless anger. It is anger that is so overwhelming that it outweighs your common sense, causing you to overreact. It usually is caused by suppressed mental or emotional pain (which can be any negative emotion or hurt). The solution is to deal with these suppressed issues, and once you have dealt with them, deal with any new issues that come up as soon as they come up (see the procrastination part under sloth, above). If you don’t have any suppressed issues, you will find very little anger at all, let alone so hot as to deserve the name wrath.
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Envy
Envy… envy is the result of a mindset saying that you can’t have something. It is very difficult to be envious of something that you feel like you can have, if you want it and are willing to work for it. If you have a Ferrari, you don’t envy someone with a Mercedes. If you have a beautiful, loving wife, you don’t envy someone else that has a hot girlfriend. Defeating envy is like defeating greed, in that it requires you to change your mindset. You need to make two changes, the first being stepping back and looking at what you really want, which is often not the same as what you think you want if you don’t take the time to actually think about it. The second is to realize that you can have just about anything you want, you just have to deal with the work necessary to achieve it and the consequences of acquiring it. If you shortcut the work by stealing it, for instance, there are consequences of that action.
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Pride
Pride, the seventh and final sin on this list… pride is a result of thinking that people are of different values, and that those values are related. What this means is that you think that one thing or another makes someone better than another person. It could be intelligence, money, good works, or social status… it could be pretty much anything, if you think that someone with more (or less, for that matter) of whatever standard it is is a better person because of having more (or less) of it. The secret of defeating pride, then, is to realize that each person is a complete individual, and that their value is not related to anyone else. That even includes yourself… your value has no relation to anyone else’s value. The only method of evaluating yourself that makes sense or is useful at all is how close you are to becoming who you choose to be… and this is true for others as well. You cannot truly evaluate the value of someone else, as their true value and even who they truly are cannot be measured by external things, not even using their attributes (like intelligence) and actions together, as you cannot know the true extent of the former, or the true reasons behind the latter.
Since you cannot compare your worth to anyone else’s legitimately, there is nothing about which to have sinful pride. Pride only comes from thinking your value, at least in a certain area, is higher than that of others. If you give up that idea/belief, there is no pride (other than pride in one’s progress towards one’s own goals, which is not sinful, I think).
So there you have it: seven sins, and seven ways to defeat the power of those sins. There are even a few links scattered throughout to more in-depth writings on the topics. So the promise given at the beginning is now kept. If you do what has been suggested above, you will soon see the benefits/results.
