Liberated by one or zero

Here is a short quiz to gauge what your relationship with temptation is.

*Do you have trouble stopping something once you’ve started?

*Is it easier for you to give something up altogether than to indulge moderately?

*Do you feel peace and gratitude at the thought of never having to get or do something?

*Do you loathe spending your precious energy justifying why you should go ahead and indulge?

If you answered yes to more than one of those questions, then you might be an abstainer.

And don’t worry, it’s not good or bad, right or wrong, better or worse. It’s simply one way of experiencing the world.

For me, abstinence has always been cheaper than moderation. That’s the way my brain is wired. And in my experience, the cool part about this temperament is the amount of leverage it gives me in the form of mental freedom. Abstinence requires no additional thinking on my part. There’s no constraint through numbers, only liberation through zero.

If my office had a holiday party, for example, and copious amounts of delicious cookies and alcohol were served, then my brain didn’t have to battle through the mental gymnastics of planning, calculating, compensating and regretting.

Should you eat dessert? How many drinks is appropriate at a work function? Did you hydrate enough today? Are you planning on working out tomorrow? How many meetings do you have in the morning? Does this outfit even allow room for eating and drinking? Are we going out after the party for diner?

Okay then, it’s settled. Seven cocktails and ten cookies. Screw it, it’s the holidays.

That entire conversation doesn’t even take place inside my head. Abstinence simplifies and eliminates. Since alcohol and sugar aren’t part of my life, they have zero appeal to me, and therefore, require zero additional thinking.

Come party time, now my brain can relax and focus on connecting with friends and dancing until my shirt is soaked in sweat.

And understandably, the knight of abstinence is not the hero who people worship and honor. We live in a culture that fetishizes moderation, shames monotony, celebrates cheat days, rewards temptation, scoffs at rigidity and insists on indulgence being a healthy and necessary part of a fulfilling life.

Fine with me.

People should do whatever gives them the greatest leverage and fulfillment.

Abstinence does that for me, and perhaps you’ll find a way to do the same for yourself.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Are you a moderator or an abstainer?