Balancing our lives

By Peter Espeut

The Holy Season of Lent began on Wednesday, and it runs completely counter-culture. Lent is about self-discipline, about taming the human drives towards pleasure, materialism and power, about striving for personal perfection. Our hedonistic, materialistic, 'a-me-rule' culture drives us to abandon self-control, and to get as much as we can for ourselves. It makes us a restless, insatiable and selfish society.

There is more to life than possessions, but you would never know it, for the job of media marketing is to make us want more, to feel somehow inadequate without the latest stuff, to make us believe that the route to happiness is to have more.

But the more we have, the more we want, and pursuing material things is deeply unsatisfying. Being dominated by the pursuit of wealth unbalances our personalities and our lives. Putting the accumulation of wealth first makes us undervalue everything else, including other human beings and the environment. When profit comes first, we see everything and everyone else as inputs into our personal enterprise, as there for us to use as we wish.

Lent gives us an opportunity to restore the balance in our being, to help us revalue our lives. We are of value because of who we are, and not because of what we have. Other persons are of value not because of what they have (we might be tempted to disregard those poorer than ourselves), or how they can help us, but because they share our humanity. The world in which we live belongs to others as well, including those as yet unborn, and we must wish to pass it on in a healthy condition.

Ancient Christian tradition calls upon us not to become attached to our possessions, but to be prepared to give some of it away (this is called alms-giving) to show our detachment. Since in Lent we seek to balance our lives, Lent is a special season of alms-giving.

But for some, there is no virtue in alms-giving. "More for me!"

There is more to life than the pursuit of physical pleasure in food and drink, in drugs and sex. But you would never know it because the music carries a different message: "If it feels good, do it!" "Do it till you're satisfied!" "Don't stop till you get enough!"

never enough

But do we ever "get enough", or do we always want more? And the moment of pleasure is often followed by restlessness and regret.

Dumb animals operate by the pleasure-pain principle, avoiding pain and maximising pleasure. But don't we intelligent beings know that sometimes, we have to put up with some pain for greater gratification later? Spending our lives seeking pleasure fogs our minds, hindering clear thinking; we prowl at night, looking for pleasure. It unbalances our personalities and our lives, and makes us value others only if they give us pleasure.

Lent gives us an opportunity to restore the balance in our being, to help us revalue our lives and the lives of others. Pleasure-seeking is not a sound basis for mature living. Sometimes, parents have to deny themselves pleasure today for the sake of their children; or husbands, for the sake of their wives.

Sometimes, you have to put yourself at risk for the common good. Self-denial is profoundly human, and is an important aspect of personal maturity.

It is an ancient Christian tradition to fast during Lent. It is important to be sure whether our bodies are ruled by our brains, or by some region lower down. Not everyone can manage a total fast (for medical reasons), but as a spiritual exercise, everyone can deny themselves something they like for the 40 days of Lent, as a route to greater self-control.

There is more to life than the pursuit of power, of public acclaim. But you would never know it, for from the politician to the corner don to the policeman, everyone wants to make their authority over others be known and felt.

The powerful want to let it be known that since they make the rules, they can break them and abandon due process. In this power-mad world, there is no room for humility, which is seen as weakness.

Lent gives us an opportunity to restore the balance in our being. We are called upon to pray more, since prayer acknowledges our dependence upon God.

Striving to be a more balanced person: now, there is lasting satisfaction. Have a happy and successful Lent!

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and Roman Catholic deacon. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.