Name Your Sin

[threadwalker]

The list of the 7 deadly sins or 7 sinful thoughts changed over time. I pulled the one I'm most familiar with, which is a modern Catholic list, and inserted a few alternates from other lists in parenthesis.

gluttony
lust (extravagence/unrestrained excess)
greed
wrath
sloth (despair)
envy
pride

Most of us will admit that we have 'weaknesses' or 'areas of improvement'. I'll call a spade a spade and admit that one of the items on this list has been something I've struggled with all my life. I've certainly allowed myself to fall victim to all of them at one point or another, but one has been an overall theme.

So I'm curious if anyone else has put thought into this. I'll share mine if you'll share yours.... (mine is going to be enbedded in a comment as soon as I have a lunch break and the time to write something)

Comments

[answers-within.livejournal.com]

Good thoughtful question, as you so often provide.

Wrath is sort of nos. 1, 2 and 3 on my list. I've always, always had a very short fuse and high (often insanely high) expectations of other people and the world, which is a really bad combination. I also had a chronically angry mother so being mad all the time was kind of normal growing up. I've worked hard on it and am happy that it's much, much less the case now.

Gluttony and sloth are like Siamese twins in my world, so they're jointly next in line. Despair makes me slothful which makes me gluttonous as a response - I don't do gluttony nearly so much when I'm feeling good about things because I get very busy and banish sloth. So that is definitely a chain reaction - if I can nip the despair, the rest will stay quiescent.

Pride comes next, though it's sort of middle of the road - I guess it depends a bit on how you define it. For me it's less about the kind of things that you describe - being good at what you do and wanting that acknowledged - and more about my need to be right and shove that in people's faces. Perhaps those aren't analogous, but that's the closest I've gotten to pride. It's been a big problem most of my life and again I've put a lot of work into relaxing and detaching from whether I'm right or not, much less whether other people need to be bludgeoned with my rightness. I will occasionally take a stand on something but it's usually far more appropriate.

Greed and envy are the bottom of the list for me - I have never wanted more than I need of just about anything, and am generally pretty non-material overall, and I certainly don't get bunched up about things other people have that I wish I did! Honestly, if it's a material thing and I want it that bad I'll just get it myself. If it's something intrinsic, like someone having awesome teeth (I have "tetracycline teeth" from childhood) I am happy for them that they have it, mildly sad/annoyed/amused that I don't, and that's about the extent of it.