Life Leveling

Last time we talked about the fourth of the 7 Deadly Sins in Envy, with four down that means we have three to go. If you’d like to read any of the previous 7 Deadly Sin posts, then you can Click Here.

With that being said, let’s dive into fifth Deadly Sin: Gluttony. As we’ve done with the other sins, I want to talk about my personal battles with Gluttony and try to establish a couple of simple steps strategy that can help us overcome it.

Defining Gluttony

It’s also very important to understand what different ways Gluttony can exist, as many of you likely jump straight to thinking about food (how gluttonous of you). Gluttony isn’t just about how many Big Macs you can fit in your mouth, it also involves how often we use our phones, or choke our chickens.

Anything that involves consumption, can and will, develop to a gluttonous level if you aren’t careful. It’s kind of funny to think about how consumption is linked to Gluttony, which just so happens to be linked to eating, which-if you didn’t know-is then linked back to Gluttony.

Here’s where I must apologize to those who have been avid readers. I’ve been a bit inconsistent with my formatting of this “series”, now I’ve said before that all of this is a work in progress, but I plan to do better. So let’s do something I haven’t done in a couple of posts and look at the actual definition of greed, at least according to google.

Definition: Habitual greed or excess in eating (e.g.,”she said plumpness was a sign of Gluttony in most cases”) Noun

Sinning Domino Effect

Again, this is but one of many different possible definitions, but I wanted to highlight this one since it lets me segue into a point I’ve made on every post. You see how the definition says that Gluttony is a “Habitual greed”? This again shows us that a lot, if not all, of these sins link to each other in one way or another.

They all feed off of each other and cause what you could call a domino effect. In this case, I’d say that a sense of importance (Pride), may lead to you wanting more food (Greed), which leads to you eating more than you need (Gluttony).

Just for fun, we could also say that this desire to eat more was caused because the hot girl in your kingdom is attracted to fat men, since it’s a sign of wealth. So you do this wanting to breed with her (Lust). Not only that, but this guy you know is way fatter than you, so this just makes you want it more (Envy).

I’ve Been a Gluttonous Boy

Surprise, surprise, I’ve struggled mightily with this sin and through my story I think you’ll come to realize that you’ve been a gluttonous boy too… or girl?

Let’s get the obvious out of the way, I like food, like a lot. I’m not obese by any means, at least I don’t think so… I hope. But I know my diet can be better, now I don’t think my actual problem is Gluttony as much as it’s just sloth (laziness).

Eating healthy, at least to my peanut brain, is expensive and time-consuming. I would much rather eat whatever is most convenient, also, I’m poor, so that definitely has a big influence as well. I don’t think being poor is a sin, so I don’t feel too bad about that. But honestly, if I budgeted and worked more, I would have more money, meaning I could buy and cook healthy foods. So I guess it does just come back to sloth.

That being said, I don’t think I have the typical type of Gluttony. I mean if it came down to me and a starving person eating, I like to believe I would choose them. My problem is a different type of consumption, usually being virtual consumption.

This is why I said that you likely will realize that you struggle with Gluttony as well. This article by Reviews.org (Click Here) states that 40% of Americans self-identify as phone addicts.

Now I’m not American, but I definitely would put myself in this boat despite efforts to change. I would also argue that the actual number of people addicted to their phones is most likely much higher than the 40% who admitted it.

Phone addiction in itself would require it’s own post (and there are very many on it to prove that), but I want to express my experience with phone addiction and give my two cents on the topic.

I have had a phone since around 14-15, which is later than most people these days and even those days. I’ve been on social media since before then (I used my iPod 5th Gen… not to flex). With school, I never really felt as though I was addicted or that it was a problem, because I was pretty busy. But then I graduated and started having a lot of free-time.

Within this free-time is when I would start using my phone a lot. Again, I never really thought much of it, that was until I started feeling what I like to call “Brain rot”. I started experiencing what I called a sense of not fully being present. I almost felt a bit floaty, not all there, as if I was on autopilot every waking hour of my life.

It was pretty easy to pinpoint the problem, as when I wasn’t on my phone for long periods of time, this feeling would go away. Now I’m not interested in going into the nitty gritty of the science and all of that, what conclusions you decide to draw and whether they involve phones is up to you.

For me, I was experiencing bad results and knew that my overconsumption of my phone was having negative effects. So I made a decision to reduce my phone time and over the years I’ve done that.

The problem is that my phone time is still high, ranging between 2-4 hours daily, and on top of that, I know I have better things to do. It’s weird, boredom use to be one of the few problems when I was a kid and now I have a device to end boredom forever, but it makes me depressed.

Time and time again, I would try to fully remove social media, and each time I would get drawn back. Full stop, it’s an addiction, clear as day, and I’m not a fan of those in any capacity.

My Gluttony doesn’t just involve my phone, at times it’s video games, others it was porn, and occasionally it’s food. Gluttony is rampant in this world, so let’s discuss the steps you can take to conquer it.

How to Conquer Gluttony

1. Awareness: In my previous posts I referred to this step as identify, but honestly, I think awareness makes more sense. You have to become self-aware of your Gluttony if you want a chance at conquering it, take a second to think of the many different ways you might be gluttonous in your life.
2. Acceptance: You need to accept that you’ve been this way and you can’t change the past. Accept that what you were doing is bad and understand why, you can’t lie to yourself, because you will eventually question yourself. Accept that this won’t be easy and no matter how much motivation you have now, there will come a time when you will be challenged and you will want to give up.
3. Engrave: Deeply engrave your reasons for why you’re doing this, if you want to stop going on your phone, make sure you understand why that is. If you don’t have legitimate reasons to do something, then you won’t do it. That’s just how our mind works, it’s like trying to convince someone else of something, you have to do the same for yourself. Make sure you can make a case to yourself and that you won’t let doubt win. An easy way that you can engrave a message is by writing it down, not only does this act as something you can refer to, but also the act of writing is great for memorization.
4. Setup for Success: A concept we’ve talked about before, if you want to be successful, then you better setup for success. Delete those social media apps that you’re dumping days of your life into. This is one of the hardest steps to take, but it’s by far the most effective.
5. Struggle: Once you’ve stopped going on your phone or over consuming whatever it is you were, you will realize something. You have a lot of time, there’s a few things you can do with time, you can fill it with work, fill it with fun, or fill it with boredom. Whatever you decide, you can’t resort to your old habits. Being bored can be very painful, so you either have to learn to deal with it, or find other things to do. I know this can be easier said than done for some people, so I’d suggest just trying something new. If you don’t enjoy it, then try something else, something has to stick eventually. Just make sure it’s something that you can be happy about doing, and not just another addiction.

These may seem too simple, but often things are simple, but just difficult. I’d highly advise against trying to find some secret trick that will make your problem go away. These problems are often a struggle and as cheesy as it sounds, I truly believe there’s a reason for that.

You don’t even have to be religious to believe that, as science already shows that we benefit tremendously from dealing with and overcoming challenges. At the end of the day, you will eventually be tested and whether or not you give in will be up to you.

It can be hard not to give in, sometimes life sucks and all we want is a quick coping mechanism, I know this all too well. This is the real challenge, this is where you have to remind yourself of why you’re even doing this to begin with.

You have to have a bit of faith that the short-term struggle will result in a long-term better life. You have to believe that the good will eventually outweigh the bad. And lastly, you have to put that pessimistic side of you to the side and beat it with a metal baseball bat.

Don’t let the pessimistic doubt get to you, it’s ironic because it is you. It’s you trying to convince yourself to give up. This all reminds me of the material I’m currently reading, which is “Everything Is F*cked” by Mark Manson. I’m only three chapters in, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it and it’s definitely has some interesting arguments about what truly drives us to do what we do. So if that sounds interesting Click Here (it’s an affiliate link, so it helps me out too!) to check it out on Amazon.

With that all being said, I hope whatever sins you’re fighting lose and that you stand victorious. Are you struggling with some form of Gluttony? If not, are you struggling with another sin? Let me know in the comments. Take care of yourselves 🙂