February 23, 2012
The Seven Deadly Habits of Highly Defective People
The Four Levels of Happiness® offers a way to dissect and overcome these powerful vices
By Jim Berlucchi
My first memorable brush with a few of the Seven Deadly Sins occurred when I was just 5. Lusting after some gum at the local grocery store, I stuffed a jumbo, multi-pack of Dentyne into my pants. When I got home, I feverishly replenished my mouth with fresh gum until my mouth and jaws grew sore from overexertion. To make matters worse, I was found out. My father escorted me to the store manager, and I cringingly admitted my crime. Dad paid the restitution, and I went to Confession.
That was a great moral lesson, which I promptly forgot. Over time, I developed a personal acquaintance with every one of the deadly sins. Despite my pursuit of virtue for many years now, I just can’t seem to entirely shake these vices. Thankfully I’m in good company. As St. Paul complained (Romans 7:21-25)
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Just last week, I found myself describing “the law of sin” to a group of ethics officers from major companies. Given the secular nature of the event, I didn’t use words like sin, but I did explain the mindset that makes it so easy to do the wrong thing. The Four Levels of Happiness® provides a great way to illustrate certain traps of human nature. If you define happiness solely in terms of pleasure (Level 1) or ego gratification (Level 2), you’re much more prone to fall into ethical lapses of every variety. You may not even realize that self-gratification is your driving desire, but when it is, you can rationalize all manner of transgressions.
The link between the lower levels of happiness and sin was wonderfully underscored in a different talk I gave to priests and deacons. They were a very happy, boisterous group, and when I asked them to list the Seven Deadly Sins, they started shouting out each vice by name. After all seven were listed in large letters on my flip chart, one priest shouted out, “And lust!” The joke – some sins are so widespread that they deserve to be listed twice – provoked uproarious laughter among these seasoned confessors.
I have found that the best way to battle these deadly habits is not by fighting them head on. As Paul noted, our concupiscence can’t be fully suppressed or extinguished. But by slow degrees and grace, it can give way to a desire for deeper, and more pervasive, enduring forms of happiness. |
They were also quick to correlate the seven sins with the first two levels of happiness. You might recall Levels 1 and 2 are what Fr. Spitzer calls our ‘default drive.’ Human nature naturally gravitates to the most immediate and intense forms of happiness. But while pleasure and winning are good in and of themselves, they become destructive when they turn into dominant and all-consuming desires. When that happens, we’re apt to neglect opportunities for the higher forms of happiness – the joy that comes from a Level 3 love of neighbor and a Level 4 love of God. There’s much more to life, and more that God wants to gives us, than brief sensations and fleeting victories.
So often though, we’re willing to settle for less. Lust and gluttony are all about the ephemeral satisfactions of Level 1. These pursuits become deadly when our natural desires for sexual pleasure and food overcome reason and right. They take over and enslave us just as St. Paul describes.
While I used to think that sloth was pure Level 1, I’ve realized it’s more complex than that. Sleeping late and “vegging out” can become a form of overindulgence, but the ancients used the word acedia to describe a more serious spiritual malady marked by a loss of desire, ambition, and hope. When your self esteem is battered, something resembling laziness sets in. But what we might disdain as Level 1 indolence could actually be a form of despair caused by profound Level 2 discouragement. When you live for your ego and your ego is crushed, you can fall into a listless, self-pitying outlook. But it’s still Level 2 because it’s all about you, not others or God.
Anger and envy are often sparked by Level 2 frustrations, which can erupt or seethe below the surface when egos are thwarted or wounded. And pride is the quintessential Level 2 demand: “The world must revolve around ME!” Greed, to round out the list, can flow from our appetites or our pride. We can fall into the relentless pursuit of more to fuel our indulgences or to demonstrate that we’re better because we have more.
I have found that the best way to battle these deadly habits is not by fighting them head on. As Paul noted, our concupiscence can’t be fully suppressed or extinguished. But by slow degrees and grace, it can give way to a desire for deeper, and more pervasive, enduring forms of happiness. That’s why we need to consciously choose to pursue the joys of Levels 3 and 4. We have Paul’s assurance (Romans 7:12-15) that our sincere effort will be rewarded.
So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh – for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship.
When we seek the higher happiness that our loving God wants us to have, the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness and frees us to live as sons and daughters of God.
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Last changed: May 05 2011 at 11:29 AM