Alternate:Words

Temptation:Reasoning:Resolve, orig­i­nally uploaded by Thorsten Becker.

Accord­ing to Wikipedia temp­ta­tion is defined as following:

“A temp­ta­tion is an act that looks appeal­ing to an indi­vid­ual. It is usu­ally used to describe acts with neg­a­tive con­no­ta­tions and as such, tends to lead a per­son to regret such actions, for var­i­ous rea­sons: legal, social, psy­cho­log­i­cal (includ­ing feel­ing guilt), health, eco­nomic, etc. Temp­ta­tion also describes the coax­ing or induc­ing a per­son into com­mit­ting such an act, by manip­u­la­tion or oth­er­wise of curios­ity, desire or fear of loss.”

Temp­ta­tion is a word that has changed con­sid­er­ably in impact and mean­ing over the cen­turies. Today a choco­late cake may be tempt­ing to some­one on a diet. While this agree­ably could have a neg­a­tive effect on the dieter’s goal the actual cause is more of a lure or a lack of self con­trol. ‘Temp­ta­tion’ has been and should be used in more far reach­ing impli­ca­tions. Take the cur­rent credit cri­sis. The under­ly­ing prob­lem is the human fac­tor of greed cou­pled with a lack of self-control and the result­ing temp­ta­tion — on the part of the tempter and the one being tempted — with far reach­ing con­se­quences for indi­vid­u­als as well as the entire econ­omy. We’re used to, or even con­di­tioned to, be tempted in many dif­fer­ent ways that all can affect our phys­i­cal, men­tal, emo­tional and spir­i­tual well being, as well as our finan­cial means. Liv­ing beyond one’s means has become com­mon place. Spend­ing more money than we have is a result of temp­ta­tion by the finan­cial insti­tu­tions, opin­ion mak­ers and mar­ket­ing indus­try, mis­lead­ing peo­ple to give in to their own desires, regard­less of the con­se­quences. Being tempted, being exposed to temp­ta­tion should be a con­cept each of us need to be aware of in order to live a sat­is­fac­tory life.

Temp­ta­tion has always had a very reli­gious mean­ing reoc­cur­ring through­out his­tory in many dif­fer­ent reli­gions, pre­dom­i­nantly Chris­tian­ity and the fall of mankind through temp­ta­tion — eat­ing from the for­bid­den fruit. But tra­di­tional reli­gious believes are dimin­ish­ing in the west­ern world. A more ego­cen­tric view has emerged where every­one is the mas­ter of his/her own fate and desire fol­low­ing the motto “take what you can get, you deserve it.” In that sense temp­ta­tion may be looked upon as old fash­ioned, antique, no longer fit­ting. This form of rea­son­ing how­ever has proven fatal, as the cur­rent state of world affairs attest again.

This leads to the means of com­bat­ing temp­ta­tion: rea­son­ing. Refer­ring back to Wikipedia rea­son­ing is defined as:

“Rea­son­ing is the men­tal (cog­ni­tive) process of look­ing for rea­sons for beliefs, con­clu­sions, actions or feel­ings. Humans have the abil­ity to engage in rea­son­ing about their own rea­son­ing using intro­spec­tion.”

Depend­ing on our life expe­ri­ence, knowl­edge and edu­ca­tion we can rea­son on many dif­fer­ent ideas and ide­olo­gies. The extent of our rea­son­ing capa­bil­i­ties dic­tates our actions and their out­come. False rea­son­ing based on mis­in­for­ma­tion and per­sonal decep­tion will lead to neg­a­tive results, albeit not nec­es­sar­ily imme­di­ately. Good rea­son­ing is based on gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion, learn­ing, being open minded and accept­ing one’s short­com­ings and poten­tially inju­ri­ous desires. An exchange of wis­dom is needed, wis­dom equat­ing to prac­tic­ing and act­ing on knowl­edge. Much wis­dom can be found by focus­ing on spir­i­tual mat­ters rather than phys­i­cal needs. What we learn, and con­se­quently what we teach, will enable us and oth­ers to rea­son more effec­tively there­fore oppos­ing temptation.

Though rea­son­ing alone is not enough to over­come temp­ta­tion. Resolve is needed. Accord­ing to Merriam-Webster resolve can mean:

4 a: to deal with suc­cess­fully : clear up : resolve doubts, resolve a dis­pute
b: to find an answer to -
c: to make clear or under­stand­able
d: to find a math­e­mat­i­cal solu­tion of
e: to split up (as a vec­tor) into two or more com­po­nents espe­cially in assigned directions

5: to reach a firm deci­sion about resolve to get more sleep, resolve dis­puted points in a text

We may know per­fectly well that cer­tain actions are not ben­e­fi­cial for us but we are not resolved enough to act on that rea­son­ing. Resolve requires self-control. Self-control requires self-denial, not denial of who we are but of what we want and think we need. Deny­ing our­selves plea­sures and belong­ings we either think we need or oth­ers try to con­vince us we need/want (tempters) will lead to an increase in self-respect. How so? I respect peo­ple who make good deci­sions, I trust them. If I can trust myself to make good deci­sions on my behalf I will respect myself. Trust in myself alone is not enough though as this would con­tribute to an ego­cen­tric view. I need to be able to trust oth­ers as well, those who make good deci­sions, who are able to rea­son and show resolve.

Now, why use toys to illus­trate this con­cept? Toys enabled us as chil­dren to develop our cre­ativ­ity and play out ideas and con­cepts. A play­ful, almost child­like approach can often lead to see­ing things from a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive. A phys­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of an issue or a prob­lem may enable us to bet­ter under­stand its cause and effect and help us find cre­ative solutions.

If you have another moment to spare I also rec­om­mend read­ing Laura Rowley’s arti­cle on Yahoo Finance titled Money and Hap­pi­ness Under the Micro­scope.

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