How Much Does Your Pleasure Cost You and Others?

Are you willing to pursue virtue, or do you think of it as costing too much?  Pleasure has a price, too, one that is sometimes worth paying and sometimes not.  Pleasure is often an attempt to mitigate pain, but sometimes the price of pleasure is more pain for us and others.  How much is your pleasure costing you?  Your loved ones?  Your community and society?  Cinthia explains, “Pain is real.  Pain management, when done morally, is the best antidote and possible cure for pain… in this world.  Pleasure, however, most often masquerades as giving you positive feelings.  It seems to give you rest and relaxation and fun, but it always has a price.”  Pursuing pleasure is different than simply enjoying it as a by-product of pursuing what is good.  The single-minded pursuit of pleasure is a dangerous road, a slow burn, one that often costs us the best things in life. 

We often think about the costs of our pleasure-seeking in our own lives, but we often do not consider the costs to others.  Good character understands and respects the price of pleasure to ourselves and others.  Good character qualities produce emotional, intellectual, relational, spiritual, and physical currency.  When we practice good character, we produce more emotional health, and we use our physical bodies differently.  We recognize that we are not in the world all by ourselves; we impact and are impacted by others.  This makes it important to be a good friend, partner, parent, neighbor, employee, confidant, etc. -- to bring out the best in others by being the kind of others can aspire to be.  Think of how God partners with us: Even when we are not good, He is still good.  Be someone that people can trust.  You cannot do this if you are pursuing pleasure alone. 

Contributing well to others does not mean you never receive or “deduct” from the relationship; it simply means that you make “deposits,” as well.  How do you handle the mistakes in relationships?  Are you someone from whom others have to recover, or do you contribute meaningfully to those around you?  Do you go to events expecting only to receive, or do you bring honor, encouragement, energy, positive emotion, patience, etc.?  Is your primary focus on deducting or depositing?  On your experience or the experiences to which you contribute?  Are you willing to pursue virtue?  What are the costs and rewards of that pursuit?

How much does your pleasure cost others – even the pleasure of holding onto your own bad mood?  What is the price of an addiction to you and to others, and what would be the costs and revenue of sobriety, for others and for you?  What is your “aroma” – what is it like to be around you?  How do people feel when you enter or leave the room?  If your world is all about you, what does it cost others to interact with your world?  Does your presence bring peace?  Bringing peace does not involve pretense; it involves genuine confidence and the ability to give to others because you have been taking appropriate care of yourself.  Bringing peace is possible even when confronting someone.  It is not the same as telling people only what they want to hear, but it does involve considering how someone else experiences the conversation and not only what the conversation is like for you.  Virtue is not always about being “nice,” though it is never cruel; it involves giving what is needed rather than what we simply want to discard during an interaction.

“What you do matters,” states Cinthia, “not just down here, but for eternity.”  We can go to heaven because of our belief in Jesus, but He also wants us to participate in the work of His Kingdom, partly just by the way we are with those around us.  What are you doing with your words?  Cinthia read an excerpt from Jesus Calling (March 1, 2020) that brought attention to what is created, destroyed, brought to life, or brought to death by all the words we speak.  Do you simply say what you want to say and then shrug off or defend the impact?  Why are we not thinking and being intentional with our words?  They matter.  Cinthia also read II Timothy 3:1-5, which states, “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.  For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.  Avoid such people.” 

Our character is formed by pleasure and pain.  Cinthia recited the poem “Along the Road” by Robert Browning Hamilton, which poignantly describes having learned deeply from sorrow what could not be learned from pleasure.  Pleasure often moves us to do what is base, often giving us the excuse of avoiding pain.  Pain, however, can move us to do what is noble.  Pain reveals who we are and changes us into what we will be, for good or for evil.  The things that cause us pain reveal what we value; Plato stated, “Man needs to be so trained from his youth as to find pleasure and pain in the right objects.”  This training of our affections, our passions, is the work of building virtue.  Until we get to heaven, we will always be dealing with pleasure and pain.  How do you manage pleasure?  How do you manage pain?  Pain is necessary to create courage.  When we refuse to face pain, we become cowards.  A cure is often effected by administering the opposite of the disease, but the antidote can be more painful than the disease.  This is frustrating.  We can become more base because of pain and so seek pleasure above all else, or we can learn to deal well with pain instead of seeking solace in our vices.  We can develop character in order to see the world clearly and still have the virtue of love that God demonstrated when He died for the world.