Wednesday, March 12, 2014

The Seven Deadly Sins




Pride, lust, anger, gluttony, greed, envy, and sloth.

Deadly, but not necessarily deadly in the literal sense of the word.  Only in that the participation in these behaviors over time erodes the spiritual, psychic, and emotional condition of an individual. 
Death of sorts, without a doubt. 

When is the last time you engaged in any of these mind-sets, or behaviors and felt good about it?  
Or about yourself?  Doesn’t happen, unless your sense of balance has already been severely compromised.

With religion not being a very popular idea these days, we’ve been drifting away from the core principals that enable human beings to live in a place of personal equilibrium, a place free of the encumbrance and entanglement of self-indulgence, and the inevitability of personal deterioration.  
Yes, the soul and spirit of a person deteriorates just the same as the body does when its basic maintenance is overlooked, or deliberately ignored.

The Seven Deadly Sins are different from the Ten Commandments, which, obviously, are also dismissed these days right along with most religious dogma.  The problem with wholesale dismissal of principals is that you end up throwing out the wheat with the chaff, the fruit with the rind.  
The Ten Commandments are not just a list of do’s and dont’s that someone said ‘you better pay attention to’.  They are principals to live by if you want to live well.  To live outside of their influence 
is to live with the certainty of personal corrosion, erosion and decline. 

The Seven Deadly Sins all involve emotions, and are quite likely 
to inflict ugly scars on the lives 
of those who engage with them.  They are potholes in a sense. 
If you avoid potholes on the road, you save a lot of damage
to your cars suspension. 
If you avoid The Seven Deadly Sins you avoid the damage to your own 
psychic/emotional/spiritual suspension.  
Someone was good enough to identify The Seven Deadly Sins 
for us, much like how a road maintenance crew will spray-paint a 
circle on the pavement around a pothole to indicate its need 
for repair, and to warn the driver of its location 
so that it can be avoided. 

No one is required to disengage from them, but it doesn’t make
a lot of sense to inflict unnecessary damage on one’s self, though.  
Does it?

Here are basic definitions, but I won’t expound on each of the seven.  
If you’re interested you can research them for yourself.
Best I not do the work for you.

Pride – A haughty attitude shown by people who believe 
that they are better than others.

Lust -  The strong physical desire to have sex with somebody 
without associated feelings of love or affection.

Anger  -  A feeling of extreme annoyance.

Gluttony -  Eating and drinking to excess.

Greed -  An overwhelming desire to have more of something, 
such as money, than is actually needed.

Envy – The resentful feeling of wanting somebody else’s success, 
good fortune, personal qualities or possessions.­

Sloth -  A disdain of work or of physical exertion.