Discover the Doppelgängers of your virtues.
Evagrius Ponticus, a monk and ascetic nicknamed the solitary once wrote, “Whether thoughts disturb the soul or not does not depend on us, but whether they stop, or do not stop in the soul, and whether they trigger, or do not trigger, the lower passions, that does depend on us.”
The problem is that there are evil thoughts that seem reasonable and good thoughts that seem wrong.
That is why we often get entangled with the wrong thoughts.
How do you discern which thoughts are good and which are bad 🙂
Seeing if they are born from a virtue or its evil twin.
Here are seven main virtues and their evil twins so you can identify where your thoughts come from and know which ones to keep and which ones to run away from faster than the roadrunner from Wile E. Coyote (Beep! Beep! 🙂
- Laziness is the evil twin of serenity. That’s why all thoughts like, “I’ll pass, I’ll do it tomorrow,” “I’ll pass, I’ll eat the pizza and start the diet on Monday,” “I’ll pass, I’ll stay on the couch eating Doritos and watching Netflix, I’ll go for a walk when the weather is better,” are so toxic: because they end up putting you in a state of listlessness where you feel like doing less and fewer things. Serenity, peace of mind, and happiness do not come from laziness but from doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done. Remember, an active life is a happy life.
- Gluttony is the evil twin of freedom. You think that consuming too much of what you like is freedom of choice, but this is a mistake. Lack of control over your impulses is what enslaves you. You only will be free when you tame your desire to consume compulsively. You cannot be addicted to something (gluttony) and free. Freedom can only be achieved through discipline and frugality, even though it may seem contradictory. Freedom is not anarchy; freedom is responsibility and order.
- Irascibility is the evil twin of patience. If you do not cultivate patience, emotions will hijack your brain, and you will act without thinking. And this will lead you to make mistakes you will regret for the rest of your life. Not having patience will get you into all kinds of trouble, from losing a friend to committing a violent act. Patience is the ability to wait for the perfect moment to act in the right measure that each situation requires. And like any skill, it can be trained.
- Lust is the evil twin of love. Self-esteem cannot exist without self-love. And without the love of self, one cannot love others well. Lust implies wanting variety in sexual partners and living sexuality solely as a vehicle for pleasure, and that objectifies the people you relate to sexually. Lust makes you look for acceptance in others, which, by definition, makes you feel incomplete, which leads to the destruction of self-esteem. On the other hand, love makes you seek a healthy union with the loved one, in which you share your intimacy with someone you appreciate and respect.
- Greed is the evil twin of abundance. To be greedy is to want more than you need. That leads you to be perverse and selfish. And selfishness makes you lonely and unhappy. Because one wants to abound or should want to abound to have a good life and give a good life to others, but the miser does not share, he only accumulates money, and when time goes by he realizes that the only thing he has is paper money, and paper does not hug, it does not say “I love you daddy”, it does not send you Christmas cards. Paper money will not hold your hand when you are intubated in a hospital, nor will it miss you when you die. Being abundant and generous will make the people around you appreciate you and give you their love.
- Envy is the evil twin of well-being. The envious person wants to be more than others. It is not enough for him to live well; he needs to live better than his neighbor, even if that means lowering his socioeconomic level. An envious person prefers earning 50k a year if his neighbor earns 25k more than earning 100k if his neighbor earns 250k. And that drains the well-being out of his life. That is why constantly comparing oneself with others is a source of suffering. Well-being is accepting yourself and your circumstances, working with what you have to improve daily, and stopping thinking about what you don’t have or what others have.
- Proudness is the evil twin of wisdom. When you are arrogant, you think you know everything. And the one who thinks he knows everything cannot learn anything because he believes he has nothing to learn. However, the humble person learns from everyone because he accepts his littleness, and like an empty glass, he fills up. That is why when you interview the best professionals, whether surgeons or basketball players, you realize they are very humble people who have often had a hard time. The storms of their lives taught them to be humble, giving them the wisdom they sought initially.
I hope this little explanation will help you to discern if a thought comes from virtue or, on the contrary, from its evil twin so that the ideas that are the gasoline with which the engine of the heart makes your life go are the most appropriate, and lead you to an abundant and happy life.
A virtual hug
AG
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