How to Master Your Desires (Aristotle On Temperance)

Why can some people enjoy the pleasures of life without being controlled by them?

Why can some people put down the phone, walk away from the food, control their anger, or get to work when they don't feel like it, while others seem powerless against their own impulses?

And perhaps the most important question of all:

What does it actually mean to become master of yourself?

The ancient philosophers believed the answer was found in one of the four cardinal virtues:

Temperance.

In this episode of The Examined Life, Dr. Scott M. Sullivan explores the ancient philosophy of self-mastery and the virtue the Greeks called sophrosyne.

Temperance is often misunderstood as deprivation: don't eat too much, don't drink too much, don't have too much fun.

But Aristotle, Epictetus, the Stoics, and Thomas Aquinas understood something much deeper.

Temperance is not fundamentally about saying no to pleasure.

It is about establishing who governs your life.

Reason or appetite.

You or whatever desire happens to be shouting the loudest.

The temperate person can enjoy food, drink, rest, comfort, entertainment, and the ordinary pleasures of human life. But there is one enormous difference:

He can take them, and he can leave them.

They do not command him.

He commands himself.

And that is freedom.

In this episode you'll discover:

• What Aristotle actually meant by temperance and why it is much more than willpower

• The crucial difference between self-control and genuine self-mastery

• Aristotle's four stages of character: self-indulgence, incontinence, self-restraint, and temperance

• Why self-control wins the battle, but temperance ends the civil war

• Why almost every worthwhile goal depends upon sacrificing a smaller good now for a greater good later

• Why freedom does not mean "I can do whatever I want," but "I do not have to do everything I want"

• How excessive pleasure can gradually destroy your ability to enjoy pleasure

• Why temperance can actually make life's ordinary pleasures better

• The two opposite failures of temperance: self-indulgence and insensibility

• How self-mastery applies to food, money, work, exercise, your phone, comfort, attention, anger, and everyday life

• Why controlling your diet while being unable to control your temper is not genuine self-mastery

• The 3×3 Method: Prepare, Practice, Examine, a simple daily discipline for developing self-mastery

One of Aristotle's deepest insights is that there is a difference between the person who desperately wants the wrong thing but forces himself to resist it, and the person whose desires themselves have gradually learned to follow reason.

One is fighting a civil war and winning.

The other has established peace.

That is the goal of temperance.

Not to spend your entire life desperately fighting yourself, but to gradually become the kind of person whose appetites have learned their proper place.

Self-control wins the battle.

Temperance ends the civil war.

And this matters because almost everything worthwhile in life eventually presents us with the same choice:

There is something you want right now.

And there is something greater that you want more.

Health.

Marriage.

Financial security.

Meaningful work.

Physical fitness.

Character.

Achievement.

A worthwhile life.

Temperance gives you the ability to choose the greater good.

The purpose of philosophy is not simply to fill your mind with interesting ideas.

It is to help you become the kind of person who lives better.

A wiser person.

A stronger person.

A freer person.

A person capable of enjoying the good things of life without becoming enslaved to them.

Because genuine freedom is not the ability to satisfy every desire.

It is the ability to experience a desire without having to obey it.

The food doesn't command you.

The phone doesn't command you.

Comfort doesn't command you.

Anger doesn't command you.

Appetite speaks.

But you decide.

That is self-mastery.

"No man is free who is not master of himself."
— Epictetus

Recommended Reading

• Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, Books III and VII
• Epictetus: Discourses and Enchiridion
• Marcus Aurelius: Meditations
• Seneca: Letters to Lucilius
• Musonius Rufus: Lectures and Sayings
• Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, Treatise on Temperance

The Examined Life takes the timeless wisdom of the world's greatest philosophers and transforms it into practical tools for living a happier, stronger, wiser, and more flourishing life.

Vita Examinata.

#Temperance #SelfControl #SelfMastery #Discipline #Aristotle #Epictetus #Stoicism #Virtue #Character #Philosophy #SelfImprovement #TheExaminedLife

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrScottMSullivan
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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Here's a question worth taking seriously. Who is actually giving the orders in your life? You'd probably like to say, well, I am, but are you? Like when the alarm goes off in the morning, who decides whether or not you'll get out of bed? When you're hungry and the food's sitting in front of you, who decides when you've had enough? Or when your phone lights up, who decides if you're gonna pick it up? Or if you're angry, who decides that you're gonna speak up and speak your mind or not? Who decides? When you want something you know you shouldn't have, who's actually in charge? Is it you or is it the desire? Because there is an uncomfortable possibility that you can be completely free politically, right? You can be financially independent, you can be successful, powerful, you can be able to get your car and drive anywhere you want to, and still not be free. And this is because, as the ancient philosophers recognized, you can be ruled by other things. You can be ruled by food, alcohol, sex, anger, your phone, your comfort, your pleasure, the constant need to have what you want whenever you want it. And sometimes a strange thing happens is we we often call this freedom. I can do whatever I want. I do whatever I want. Isn't that free? Well, the ancient philosophers might have asked, what if doing whatever you want is precisely what makes you a slave? Because you can't say no. Because if every one of your desires or appetite that shows up can just issue a command and you obey it, then who exactly is the master here? Epictetus uh he puts the entire problem in one sentence. He says that no man is free who is not a master of himself. And that's what this episode is about. It's about self-mastery, it's the virtue we call temperance. Um the Greek call, the Greeks called it so fursunay. And temperance doesn't have a really good reputation nowadays. People think the word sounds weak, it's too restrictive, maybe puritanical, you know. Don't eat too much, don't drink too much, don't have too much fun, behave yourself. That's a pretty uh shallow understanding of the classical view of temperance. What temperance is really about, classically, according to wise people, it's about establishing who's in control. Who actually is governing your life? Is it you, your reason, or is it your desires, your appetites? You or whatever desire inside you that happens to be shouting right now the loudest, right? And this means that the that the purpose of temperance is not deprivation, it's about freedom. It's about being free from your desires, not being a slave. It's about sovereignty. Classically understood, the temperate man is the free man. He's the one that can enjoy pleasure, he can enjoy food, drink, sex, rest, comfort, entertainment, all those ordinary pleasures of human life, but there's a big difference. He's able to take them or leave them. They don't command him, he commands himself. And Epictetus says that is freedom. There's another distinction I want to make today that kind of changes the whole way we understand self-control. Aristotle recognized there's a difference between the guy who desperately wants the wrong thing but forces himself not to do it. He wants the wrong thing, but he can kind of, you know, just kind of just gut it out and just not do the wrong thing. Tuft it out through an act of willpower. That guy, right? There's a difference between him and the man who has gradually trained himself to follow reason. He's trained his own desires to follow reason. And he won't do the wrong thing either. Two kinds of men who won't do the wrong thing. The man who realizes it's wrong and fights and fights and fights and wins. And the guy whose desires are trained so well that he doesn't have a fight. He just does the right thing as it is, without all that. One guy wins a civil war, the other guy has already established peace in his soul. Um, and I bring that up from Aristotle because the goal of temperance is not to spend the rest of your life fighting yourself all the time. It's not like temperance all the time. That's not the goal we're talking about here. The goal is eventually to become the kind of person whose desires and appetites have learned their proper place. They're governed habitually by reason. They don't feel like they're out of control because that is genuine self-mastery. Not toughing it out all the time. So we're gonna talk about this virtue today, the virtue of temperance, the ability to control yourself, the ability to be in charge of your desires. We're gonna talk about why self-control is just the beginning. We're gonna talk about why temperance is really the virtue of freedom. If you don't have temperance, if you don't have self-control, you're kind of a slave. And if you can't govern your desires, you can't govern your life. The passions and the desires and all these things, the appetites, they take over. They're in control. They've got the steering wheel of your life. After that, we'll talk about the two different ways the virtue of temperance can fail. Too much on one side, too little on the other. We've seen that pattern a lot when we talk about the virtues. We'll look at what a genuinely self-controlled person looks like, and then we'll teach you how to become more powerful, more free. How to be free from your desires, to be more in control, to be a self-controlled, temperate person through a proven method that I always teach here. And this will be a huge benefit for your life because the man who doesn't have self-control will not have peace of mind and he may end up wrecking his life. So let's take that first topic. We're trying to develop self-control or temperance. Okay, well, what is it? What is this notion of habit or habit of self-control? Self-control is the mental habit of governing your desires so that you can pursue your true goals. Let me say that again. It needs to anchor that down. Self-control is a mental habit of governing your desires so you can pursue your true goals. The self-controlled person has the strength to govern his whims, his desires, his emotions, rather than those things controlling him. The self-controlled man enjoys the good things of life, but in the right way, at the right time and in the right amount. That's the basic classical working definition. Let's build on it. Aristotle makes a distinction that goes even deeper. Because there's two kinds of people that look like they're self-controlled from the outside. And it's important to understand the difference because it's important to know what we're actually aiming for here. There's two kinds of men who from the outside they both look equally self-controlled. He talks about this in his book, The Nickel McKeon Ethics, in book seven. The first person he calls the self-controlled man, the continent man, the self-restrained man. He's self-controlled. Okay. He he sits down and eats, and he's eaten enough. He knows he's eaten enough. But doggone it, there's another piece of cake over there. He wants that cake. Oh man, I know I've had enough, but you know, I even had a piece of cake. I want the second one. He wants it badly. His appetites, his desires say, go eat the cake. His reason says, You've had enough. Eat the cake. No, I've had enough. He got this fight going on. He's got a fight going on, a little civil war inside his head. He feels the desire. He resists the desire and then says no. He doesn't take the piece of cake, the second piece of cake. He fights himself and he wins. This man has self-control. It's great. He's a self-controlled man, Aristotle says. But that's not the final goal we're aiming at. Aristotle says there's a second kind of man. The second kind of man is the truly temperate man. He's the sofron, the man who has the habit of temperance. This guy doesn't take the second piece of cake either. But there's something different going on inside him that we from the outside can't see. He's not sitting there fighting with himself, like, oh, I want that cake, but I can't have it. There's not this internal civil war going on. He's not like white-knuckling it. There's no big act of willpower here. He enjoys his food just like anyone else. But when he's had enough, enough actually feels like enough. His appetite is so trained now, it doesn't want to go astray. Like the horse is so trained, it's been trained to stay on the path and doesn't want to run off the path when he sees some extra cake over there. You see what I'm saying? The appetite has been trained to follow reason in this guy, and he's not, he doesn't have this internal struggle. So on the outside, they look the same. Person A doesn't eat the extra cake, and person B, he doesn't eat the extra cake either. Right? Same plate, same decision, same behavior, but inside, two completely different men, right? One is experiencing a civil war, the other one is feeling at peace. And Aristotle is very clear about this. The second guy has the virtue more completely. The first guy is getting there. He's training, he's doing all right, you know, but it's it's a fight. He's restraining himself. That's not quite true temperance yet, says Aristotle. Yeah, it's great. He won his desire, he ran over his desire for the extra cake. But temperance is something better than that. It's better to have the desire itself actually already brought into order. And Aristotle insists, and I think he's right, that this this is the second thing is psychologically possible. And this should reframe our entire idea of what it means to be a master of yourself, because what we're talking about here is willpower is not the goal. Willpower is not the destination. It's very important when you're training, right? You you need willpower when you're building the habit, right? If every encounter with food or alcohol or you know, sex, your phone, comfort, anger, uh, or any other desire like that, if it requires an exhausting act of resistance, you're winning battles, and that's better than losing them, but you're still fighting a war. And the goal of virtue, as I always like to teach, and many philosophers do as well, is peace. Peace. Mental peace, peace of soul. So the goal of temperance is not to become really good at fighting yourself. The goal is to gradually become the kind of person who no longer needs to fight himself about everything. It's not because you've surrendered your appetite, it's because you educated them, and that's temperance. Or to put it very simply, self-control wins the battle. Temperance, though, ends the civil war. We kind of see like it's this same idea in martial arts, right? You think about a guy who's a who's a white belt in jujitsu versus a black belt in jujitsu. So everybody knows if you've ever trained, the white belt, he knows some moves, but everything he does is like rough and hard. He's he's grunting and using strength. He's trying to put you in this lock, he's trying to get you the sweep. He grips too hard, he holds his breath, he forces it, uses strength too much. And let's say he gets it, he gets the sweep, and he's exhausted. Okay? He got the sweep, but it took a lot of effort. But when you get the experienced black belt and watch him do it, boom, man, he hits it, he's relaxed, it's second nature, it's smooth. He's not trying hard. The same sweep, boom, same result, but a lot less effort, right? It's all about timing and position and experience. There's a big difference between the white belt in jujitsu and the black belt in jujitsu when they're trying the same move. It's the same thing here with virtue. Which you're trying the same virtue, the struggling guy is like the white belt, and the the actual virtuous, temperate person here is the black belt, you see. So in the beginning, Aristotle says doing the right thing might require effort, might require a tremendous amount of effort. You deliberately restrain yourself. You say no, you fight the impulse. But going through the good choices over and over again, something begins to change. Acts become habits, habits become character, and they form your desires. And those good actions get easier and easier and easier and more natural and more characteristic of you. That's the goal. Virtue is not permanent white knuckling, it's the gradual formation of a person making the good more natural. One more thing I want to point out. Aristotle uses temperance in a really specific sense. It governs our bodily desires, especially things associated with touch and taste, food, drink, sex. These things aren't evil. That's important. Temperance is not anti-pleasure. He's not telling you that these things are morally suspect. The problem is not pleasure. The problem, Aristotle says, is disordered pleasure. Too much of them. Pleasure experience at the wrong time, in the wrong amount, in the wrong circumstances, or even pursued at the expense of greater goods. So these appetites are great. The appetite for food, sex, etc., they're great, but they're also very powerful. Big, strong, powerful horses that need to be trained to stay on the trail, the trail towards the good, the trail towards the peace in your life. Because they can get strong and they can overthrow. Aristotle says they can overthrow your judgment itself. Aquinas says this too. A man can know exactly what he should do and still find himself doing the wrong thing because that desire, that appetite has taken command. Powerful. And Aquinas takes it even further, beyond that. He gives some more examples of temperance. For example, abstinence governs our relationship with food. Sobriety governs our relationship with drink. Chastity orders our sexual desire. Meekness governs our anger. Humility governs this disordered desire we have for excessive excellence. And then just kind of a more general thing of modesty governs other areas where desires need some kind of rational control. So these are different desires that we have, different appetites, but the same fundamental question is here: who is in charge? Does reason govern your desire, or does your desire govern your reason? And with that being said, that really tells us more what temperance is. So a fuller definition, a more complete definition, longer one, okay, we can say this: that temperance is the habit of governing our desires according to reason until doing so becomes characteristic of who we are. And our desires themselves come into harmony with what reason knows is good. That's self-mastery. It's not becoming a man without desires. It's being able to enjoy the good things of life: food, drink, sex, comfort, rest, whatever. Enjoy them. But you enjoy them as a free man. You possess the pleasure. The pleasure doesn't possess you. Alright, now let's move on to the next part. Why self-control matters? Why should you care about the virtue of temperance? And the answer is because almost everything you want from life depends upon your ability to govern yourself. Let me say that again. The reason why temperance or self-control, self-control matters, is because almost everything you want from life is going to depend on your ability to govern yourself, to control yourself, to keep your passions and emotions in check. Think about it. Okay? You want to be healthy? Great. But being healthy requires you to eat in certain things and not eat other things, right? You gotta eat food you don't necessarily want. You gotta work out when you'd rather sit down, right? You gotta go to bed because you get some sleep, but you'd rather stay up, right? You gotta you gotta you gotta control yourself if you want to be healthy. Or let's say you want financial security. Well, financial security means you gotta you gotta refuse to spend your money on some things. Don't spend your money now, save it so you can buy other things later. Control of yourself regarding money. Or you want a successful marriage. Well, marriage requires self-control. You gotta restrain your selfishness. You gotta remain faithful, control your anger, forgive, listen when you'd rather speak, and sometimes put your spouse's good ahead of yours. Or let's say you want to just accomplish something significant with your life. Well, as common sense says, great achievement requires great sacrifice. Years of choosing work over distraction, discipline over comfort, long-term purpose over immediate gratification. Do you see the pattern? Almost every worthwhile thing in life requires sacrificing a smaller good now for the sake of a greater good later. And this means something very important that every major goal you have, every major goal you have is downstream of self-control. Health, money, marriage, education, career, character, physical fitness, long-term achievement. I don't care what it is. All those big goals you have are downstream, or we could say, dependent upon your ability to control yourself. Your ability to work when you're tired, your ability to get up when you'd rather sleep in. Your ability to work when you'd rather recreate. Control yourself. We all have these things. Something you want right now, and something later better that you want more. Well, temperance gives you the ability to choose the greater good. Because without it, you're not going to reach those long-term goals. Your immediate appetites will take over. And, you know, in the in the kind of like the self help culture, self improvement culture, there's a lot of talk about goals. Go write down your goals, write down goals, right? I tell you what, you can write down all the goals you want. You can make plans, do all the tricks. Make vision boards, New Year's resolutions.

unknown 22:06

Right?

SPEAKER_00 22:06

You can tell everybody what you're gonna accomplish. None of that is gonna matter if you don't have self-control. Your New Year's resolution does not mean diddly squat if you don't have self-control. None of that's gonna matter if the desire of the moment just wins the day. It gets the final say-so. Because every worthwhile goal comes with a price tag. You gotta pay something now to get something later. And if you can't pay that thing now, you don't get with that thing later. So that's the first reason why temperance matters. The important things in life depend upon it. The second reason why temperance matters is because self-control makes freedom possible. That's what I just said about epictetus. This is where freedom lives. Not just the freedom to do everything you want. Can you stop doing what you want? That kind of freedom. Your appetite says eat and you eat. And your phone says look and you look. And your anger says speak and you speak. And your sexual appetite says, do it, and you do it. And your comfort says, stay in bed, and you stay, and alcohol says one more and you take one more. If that's you, if that's if what I just said is you, ask yourself, in what meaningful sense are you free? You're like Pavlov's dog with your phone. You're not deciding, you're being controlled. The phone's got you like a marionette puppet. Hey, look at me. Hey, look at me. Don't put me down. You know, you're like that thing on a string. You don't have control. The puppeteer has your control. That's why Epictetus says no man is free who's not a master of himself. So classical wisdom turns the modern idea of freedom upside down. Freedom is not, well, I can do whatever I want. Freedom is I have the power not to do everything I want. That's a lot higher, better level of freedom. I can eat it or leave it, I can drink it or leave it, I can say it or leave it. I can buy it or I can walk away. I can pick up the phone when it buzzes or I can just let it sit there. I can experience these appetites and desires without obeying them. I'm the one in control, dammit. You know? I decide. That's freedom, that's sovereignty. That stuff not only steals your goals, it steals your time, and your time is life. You gotta be able to govern yourself. If you can't govern yourself, how are you gonna lead a family? How you gonna lead a business? How are you gonna lead a team? A classroom? How are you gonna carry any serious responsibility if your appetites can overthrow you? How can you govern anything else well when you can't govern yourself? So that's the second reason why temperance matters. The third reason why temperance or self-control matters is this, and it's one that a lot of people don't expect. Self-control makes pleasure better. Let me say that again. The third reason why self-control matters is that self-control makes pleasure better. Temperance makes pleasure better. A lot of people think temperance is this thing that some guy, some philosopher standing between you and all the fun stuff. Don't eat that fun stuff, don't do that, don't do this, don't enjoy that, don't have too much fun. That's not what we're talking about. The goal is not to eliminate pleasure. The goal here is to wisely, wisely put pleasure in its proper place so that you can actually enjoy it, enjoy it more. Because there is this strange law of human appetite. And anybody who drinks too much coffee knows this. The more you satisfy a pleasure, the less satisfying that pleasure becomes. The more you satisfy a pleasure, the less satisfying that pleasure becomes. Think about food. The first bite, but you're starving hungry, okay? And you get some food, you're like, boom, great. That first bite, ugh, extraordinary, awesome, love this. By the 20th bite, okay, not so great anymore. By the time you're stuffed, oh, it's almost repulsive now. Did the food change? No. You changed. Cicero says hunger is the best sauce. Hunger makes the food taste better. Temperance makes the pleasure better. And the same principle applies everywhere.

unknown 27:42

Right?

SPEAKER_00 27:42

You've worked six days in a row really, really hard. Take a day off. Feels great. A day off. But then six days of doing nothing, you're bored. A great meal feels special, but then you eat your favorite meal, right? But now you eat it every night. Oh God, not that again, man. You know, not as good anymore. Or maybe you accomplish something, so you give yourself some entertainment, right? But you give yourself that same entertainment all day, it kind of just gets sort of old and numbing. See, pleasure requires contrast. It requires appetite. Food isn't great when you're full. Pleasure requires limits. And whenever desire is always satisfied, the desire itself becomes dull. And this is the paradox. This is the paradox. The man who thinks he's getting the most out of pleasure, the intemperate man, the man who can't control himself, can't control himself, thinks he's getting the most out of the pleasure. Oh, I'm getting the pleasure, pleasure, pleasure. But eventually, excess begins to destroy the very pleasure he's chasing. Cicero gives this kind of gross example, really, of a guy who's overfed, like just overfed, and he's way overweight, and his cheeks are stuffed, his belly's stuffed, uh, he's belching, can't eat another bite. The guy doesn't enjoy food. When you overdo it, when you overdo the pleasure, you need more to experience less, more food, more alcohol, more stimulation, more entertainment, more novelty, more intensity, more, more, more. It's not because that pleasure became greater, it's because your capacity to experience it became weaker. And temperance turns all that around. Temperance allows hunger to exist before the meal, work before rest, waiting before reward, uh, restraint before any indulgence. And suddenly, when you do that, ordinary pleasures are more pleasurable again. Make pleasure pleasurable again. The meal tastes better. The drink means something, the day off feels earned. The celebration actually feels like a celebration. So temperance doesn't make life smaller. Temperance doesn't mean you know less pleasure in your life, it restores our capacity to enjoy it. So put those reasons together. Temperance gives you, allows you to sacrifice a smaller good now for a greater good later. Temperance gives you true freedom because your desires are no longer in control of you. And temperance gives you more pleasure by preventing excess from destroying your ability to enjoy it. Achievement, more achievement? Temperance gives you more achievement, more freedom, and more enjoyment. Is that good? That's why you should care. That's why the virtue matters so much. Not trying to make you enjoy life less. It's trying to teach you how to enjoy good things without becoming their slave. Alright, now let's look at the two ways temperance can fail. Every virtue has ways of failing. We've been talking about this. Temperance is no different. With temperance, Aristotle says, you can fail in two opposite directions. You can become ruled by pleasure, or you can become, on the other extreme, incapable of even enjoying it. Ruled by it, incapable of being of enjoying it. The virtue's in the middle. Let's look at both failures. Self-indulgence. This is the one we all recognize. The self-indulgent person, he can't control himself, he can't establish reasonable limits. You know, he's got to have the drink, the alcohol, right? He chooses immediate satisfaction over greater goods. The alcoholic chooses the bottle over his family. And over time, subtle things begin to happen. His wants become perceived needs. That's an important point. Let me stop right there for a second. Wants become perceived needs. At first, you want the thing, and then later on, you need it. You tell yourself you need it. And once you follow that desire under not just a want, but a need, a bunch of important psychological stuff happens. You stop making decisions about it, you start justifying it. Such a person, you know, the man, this kind of person, the man doesn't decide to have a drink. He needs one. He doesn't decide to spend another hour on his phone. He needs to unwind. He doesn't decide to eat again. He's had a hard day. He's justifying these things, these excesses, because he's turned them into needs. He doesn't decide to explode in anger. They pushed him too far. So you see what's happened. The appetite's now in control. It's issuing commands. Hey, you need me, buddy. Let's go. Crack the whip. And your reason, you, is like this little slave. Reason no longer governs the desire. The desire governs our reason. And reason starts figuring out, rationalizing why the desire is right. Oh, yeah, I need that, you know, tenth shot of whiskey. Yeah, I need that. That's a dangerous place to be. Another thing that Aristotle makes that's really useful. Um, even people who give in to their desires, there are two different kinds. The first is the incontinent man. He knows better, he knows he shouldn't do it. His reason says don't, his appetites say do it. And the appetite wins. Then he kind of regrets it. He's embarrassed, he's disgusted. Dang it, I gave in. I knew it was wrong and I did it. Dang. You know, he's disgusted with himself. I'm gonna try better tomorrow. He got this war going on inside of him, and he lost it. He fought, he fought the desire, and he lost. But there's a second kind of man. Aristotle says this is the self-indulgent man. And strangely enough, he's worse because he stopped fighting. He doesn't think there's anything to fight anymore. He doesn't just give in to the excessive desire. He approves of it. He's reorganized his thinking around his appetite. That's a lot more dangerous because the man who didn't have control, the incontinent man, he at least still knew something was wrong. His conscience was still bothering him, and he was he was pushing back. He lost, but at least he knew it was wrong and he was putting up a little bit of a fight there. The self-indulgent man quit all that fighting. The self-indulgent man, his conscience doesn't bother him. And now, given all these things I said, you can see this whole progression Aristotle gives us. Let's start at the bottom and kind of work our way up from worst to best, bottom to the top. At the bottom, the self-indulgent man. He wants the wrong thing, does the wrong thing, and he thinks there's nothing wrong with it anyway. A level above him, the incontinent man, the man who lacks self-control. He knows what's right. He wants something bad instead, and he loses the fight. A guy above him, the self-restrained man, he knows what's right. He feels the pull in the wrong direction, but he wins. And then finally, the top guy, the best state to be in, the temperant man, the virtuous man. He knows what's right, he does what's right, and even those appetites themselves have learned to desire in accordance with his reason. There isn't any fight going on in him. Because the desires have been educated to just want the good. So you've got these four stages from bottom to top. The worst is self-indulgence, self-indulgence, and then incontinence. You can't control yourself, and then the self-controlled man, and then the temperate man at the top. Or to put it more simply, the first man, the worst man, the indulgent man, he doesn't fight. The next guy up, he fights and loses. The next guy up, he fights and wins. The next guy up, the top guy, he's established peace. That's the progression. So let me ask you this: where are you on this scale when it comes to alcohol, sex, food, health? I don't know. I mean, a lot of us in different areas are in the kind of the middle zones, you know. And it's it's categorical, right? You might be temperate with alcohol, but not with food. You might be good with anger, but you're not good on your phone. You know, virtue develops unevenly. So that's why all this requires honest self-examination. But just like all these other things we've been talking about, the small things add up. And temperance begins quietly. Not a big dramatic thing. Slowly, quietly. It's like it's like the extra hour that disappears every morning on your phone. You call that relaxing. The third drink, you say, oh, this is what a night looks like. The nasty tone you take with your family. Everyone in the house is kind of look is kind of working around it. Overeating late at night. You've been doing it for so long, you don't even think about it. Purchasing things you don't need. It just feels good for about 15 minutes. See, none of these things announce themselves like this. Warning, you're becoming a slave to your appetites. They don't come to us like that. They get nicer names. I'm unwinding. I've earned this, I'm enjoying life. That's just how I am. But but but philosophy, temperance, asks us to ask a much more uncomfortable question. Can you stop? Not did you enjoy it, not can you afford it? Can you say no? Because if you can't, then you've learned something important about who's actually in charge here. So that's the first kind of failure in temperance, is to be self-indulgent. The other way to fail is go to the other extreme. No one ever probably talks about this one. The Greek word is anesthesia. It means insensibility. The person who doesn't accept any bodily pleasures. Not because it's a greater good, because he just thinks pleasure itself is kind of bad. Now, Aristotle says this kind of failure is rare, but he's insensible. It's still a failure. Because why? The good things of life are actually good. Food is good, rest is good, sex is good within its proper order. Celebration is good, physical pleasure is good. These are fine things. There's something wrong if you don't enjoy them at all. The question is: do you enjoy them according to reason? See, the insensible man has overdone it the other way. His discipline made him disordered. That's not temperance either, says Aristotle. So if you're denying something, you ask yourself, what's the denial for? For your health, for your training, for your goals? Okay, that's great. But the insensible man has lost his ability to do that. So the goal here with temperance is to become the kind of person who takes pleasure in the right things in the right way at the right time and the right amount. The glutton sees the big meal and says, I gotta have all that. The insensible man says, I don't want any of that. The temperate man says, I will enjoy what is appropriate and then I will stop. Because he is the one in charge. The temperate man is not indulgent, nor is he joyless. He is free. He enjoys what is good in the right measure at the right time for the right reasons, and most importantly, he is the one choosing. Alright, now let's talk about what self-controlled people are actually like. It's always good to kind of have this idea of what it looks like in real life in the person. And as we've been saying, the tempered person knows how to enjoy the good things of life in moderation. They enjoy food, they enjoy drink, entertainment, rest, pleasure, but they know enough is enough. When enough is enough. They don't have to squeeze every possible ounce of pleasure out of every experience. They don't need to eat the whole box of cookies. They can enjoy something and stop. They don't habitually give in to laziness. When it's time to work, they work. When it's time to go train, they train. When something needs to be done, they don't have to wait until they feel like it. Because feelings are information, they are not commands. The temperate man can take responsibility for his duties. They don't rise and fall with his mood. If he says he's going to do something, he does it. If someone's depending on him, he shows up. He governs his ma his actions. He governs his eating. Most of the time, he eats food that's going to serve his health. He enjoys dessert. But dessert is not breakfast, lunch, dinner, blah blah blah, right? He can be hungry without treating hunger like an emergency. Oh my gosh, I'm so hungry. Satisfy that now. Come on. He can be in control. He can leave food on the plate when he's had enough. He governs his time. He puts order in his day. There's a time to rise, a time to work, a time to eat, a time to train, a time for recreation, a time for sleep. He's got his life in order. Temperate man, the self-controlled man has his life in order. He doesn't drift through his whole day from one impulse to the next. The self-controlled man plans ahead. He uses a calendar. He knows what needs to be done. He gives important things a place so that those less important things don't take over. Right? He knows that time, like money, is very valuable and it will go quick if you don't tell it where to go. And by the way, he governs his money. He doesn't spend money in everything he can. He can see something he wants. He can have the money to buy it and still say no. The self-controlled man exercises his body. He's learned that wanting to do something and deciding to do something are two entirely different things. The self-controlled man, most importantly, can delay gratification. This is one of the clearest signs of self-mastery. He can say, No, later, not yet. Enough. He can tolerate that tension of wanting something but not satisfying it. Having the desire, but not satisfying it. He can handle that. Doesn't have to give himself what he wants to settle it. You know what I mean? And and and the the self-controlled man can focus. He can sit down with one task. This is so hard for people today, where they damn phones. He can focus on one conversation, one book, one person, without surrendering his attention. Every time something pops up, his phone doesn't have unlimited authority over his mind. He doesn't have to. Oh my gosh, I got a buzz. He's in control. And you and notice what this list is describing. None of this is heroic refusal. There's no big dramatic white knuckle moments here. It's just something really less exciting. The ordered life, the man who gets up at a certain time, he works, he eats, he trains, he sleeps, he rests, his money has somewhere to go, his hours have somewhere to go. His attention has somewhere to go. His appetites have boundaries. This really actually gives you a good practical tip is that temperance is mostly built by structure, not resistance. Good routines protect the freedom from the tyranny of the moment. This is time to go work out. It's time to go work out. The structure of my life. At 12 o'clock at noon, I go to the gym. That's what I do. It becomes a habit. It's my routine. And so I don't have to decide do I want to go to the gym or not. It's what I do at 12 o'clock. The structure takes over, not the, oh, but you want to sit home and eat some cookies. You know what I mean? That doesn't take over. I already have something to do and plan, I have it planned. I made a good decision in advance. I don't need willpower right now. It's just part of my routine now. Willpower is good in the beginning, but order is better. Use willpower to build order. Use willpower to build habit. And then the order and the habit takes over. You arrange your life in such a way that you don't need willpower as much anymore. And of course, the self-controlled man can govern his anger. Anger is a very powerful passion. Aquinas makes meekness, the ability to control your anger, and clemency, the ability to lessen the punishment when someone's offended you. He puts this under temperance because anger is so powerful. Sometimes anger is a place where many people who thought they had self-control don't. They can control all the calories that enter their mouth, but they can't control the words that come out of their mouth. They can refuse dessert, but not refuse the pleasure of saying cruel things when they're ticked off. So there's some selective discipline here. But that's the basic idea of what a self-controlled man looks like. His whole person is under his own government. He is in control of all these desires. Alright, now we get to the good part. How do you become this way? How do you become this kind of person? You can't control yourself. You eat like crap. You don't want to work out. You sleep in, hit snooze, snooze, snooze. You're not self-controlled. You're an alcoholic. What are you going to do? How do you keep yourself from being ruled by these appetites? How can you develop this sort of power? We have a whole plan for this. It's based on the teaching of Aristotle. Aristotle says the word to this solution, the solution to this is what he calls hexus. Thomas Aquinas calls habitus. It's the habit. You form habits, you do acts that build habits, your habits build your character, and your character determines the life you're going to have. This is where we get into applied philosophy. Philosophy is not just head knowledge, not just meant to be understood. Oh, I understand what self-control is. It's meant to be developed in you, it's meant to be practiced. I have a simple routine here that I teach. It works great. It's easy for you to use. Applied Aristotelian philosophy for modern times. Three by three method. Three disciplines, three acts, three questions. First thing you do every morning, step one, prepare yourself to become more self-controlled. Prepare your mind. This is an old school philosophical practice. Practice. Marcus Aurelius does it in the meditations. He reminds himself before the day has begun what kind of person he wants to be like. Remind yourself in the morning that you want to be a temperate person. You want to be a self-controlled person. You don't want to be a slave. Tell yourself that in the morning. Think through that in advance. You're establishing your intention in advance before the powers of the day take over. And for temperance, this matters a lot. Because temperance is not that kind of thing you lose when you're just sitting calming your chair having your coffee in the morning. It's lost when the battle's already started, when you're hungry, when you're tired, whatever. Those crises are not good moments to decide who you want to be. Decide when you're more calm in the morning. So every morning, remind yourself. Say things to yourself. Describe what kind of person you want to be. I am a self-controlled man. I govern my desires. I'm not a slave to my passions. I enjoy the good things of life without overindulgence. I control my food, my drink, my entertainment, my money, my time, my intention, my attention, my emotions. I can experience desires without obeying them. I can say no. I can say later. I can say enough. I know when it's time to work, I know when it's time to rest. I follow the routines I have established for myself. I put off smaller pressures for the sake of greater ones later. I do not surrender my attention to every distraction. Here's a good one. My phone does not control my attention. I can put my phone down for hours and not look at it. And it doesn't bother me. I do not allow anger to decide what comes out of my mouth. I am not ruled by comfort. I am not ruled by appetite. I govern myself. That's the morning practice. Not just because just magically saying those words make it come true. It's because you remind yourself of who you want to be before you're tested. You tell yourself, this is the man I intend to be today. Then, second step, go out and do that. My goodness, with what we're talking about now, there are a gazillion things every day you can use for practice. I'm just saying three. Probably have three chances of an hour after you watch this to practice temperance in some way. Every meal, every notification, every purchase, every snooze button, every distraction, every irritation, every desire for comfort. Every moment you want something, the reason says you don't need that, or you don't want, you don't really need that. You shouldn't have that. These are reps. Get some reps in. Three reps a day. Three reps of self-control a day. Go look for them. There are tons of opportunities here. Get up when the alarm goes off. Your body says stay in bed. Your mind says get up, get up. There's a rep. Exercise when you said you would. Well, you don't feel like it, do it anyway. Another rep. Practice temperance at the table. Eat mostly what serves your health. Stop when you've had enough. Practice table push aways. Put the fork down and push the chair out from the table. One of the great stoics, uh, Musonius Rufus, thought that the eating was one of the great training grounds of self-mastery. You do it at least three times a day. Resist distractions. Your phone lights up when you're working, leave it alone. Your phone's up, you're talking, you're having a conversation with your loved one, and your phone buzzes. Leave it alone. Feel the desire to look and tell yourself no. Control your anger. Someone ticks you off, you feel the words coming, don't say it. Lower your voice. Wait. Let reason return before you open your mouth. Right? Govern your fork, govern your temper. Delay purchases. You're on Amazon, it's really easy, right? Because they have that click, buy click, one-click purchase or whatever. You want something, you can afford it. Just don't buy it yet. Wait a day. Even if you need it, wait a day. Just just why? Just because I just want to get another rep of self-control in. I want some more self-control reps. And I don't have to have this book, which is one of my weaknesses, by the way. I don't have to have this book right now. It won't make any difference if I order tomorrow. I'll put it in my wish list. I'll get it tomorrow. Just practice saying no. Do your work before your entertainment. Finish what needs to be finished, then relax. Here's a good one. Practice voluntary discomfort. Do hard things. Take the stairs. Park farther away. Finish the difficult set. Do an extra rep. Walk when you could drive. Eat a plain meal for no other reason than because it's plain. Do hard things. Do something uncomfortable deliberately. Right before you finish your shower, right? When you get to the end, you're done. You're clean. Shaven done, right? Wait 30 seconds. Boom. Hit that water on cold and just stand there and take it. Why? Because it makes you stronger. It makes you say no, it helps you say no to your desires. It sucks. That's the point. Because you learn something. You learn that discomfort is survivable. I can stand under this cold water for 30 seconds and I hate it, but I survived. It's not going to kill me. It's not going to kill me. You know? You discover that comfort does not command you, and you practice that every day. You get those reps in every day. Three times a day. Reason decides. Every day. Every one of those acts is a vote for who you're becoming. Every time you give in to a pleasure, you vote for the intemperate man. Vote for the temperate man. Fight and win. Third discipline: every day, examine yourself every night. How did I win today? How did I practice temperance? Where did I fail? How can I do better tomorrow? Nothing concealed, nothing excused. Honest self-examination. Where did I practice temperance today? Where did I not? Where did I not government? Where was I a slave today? And you do this whole sequence over and over. Tell yourself what you're going to be like in the morning. Go out and do that at least three times a day. Examine yourself and hold yourself accountable at night. You do that every day. You're going to change. You're going to become the kind of person who does these things automatically habitually. Because you're practicing, you're getting the reps in, and those reps become habits. It becomes the kind of thing you do without thinking about it. It's a pretty incredible psychological fact that Aristotle had access to centuries ago. Prepare in the morning, practice in the day, examine yourself at night. The three by three method. It will change your life. Who's giving the orders in your life? If we are honest, every person can find areas in their life where they have to answer, not me. Where something below reason is making those decisions for you. And we try to explain it, rationalize it, tell ourselves why we need it. Stop that crap. Because underneath all those explanations is one simple question: who was in charge? And the ancient philosophers didn't think this was a small problem because it's a question of freedom. You can live in a free country, have a bunch of money in the bank, get in your car, and go over wherever you want, and still be ruled by food, alcohol, sex, anger, your phone, pleasure. Whatever appetite happens to be yelling at you the most right now. And doggone it. This is why Epictetus' words are so important for all of us today. No man is free who is not a master of himself. This has been the examined life. Vita examinata.