Why Is It So Hard To Be Good?

In titling this post I was primarily thinking of my own experience, specifically with regards to this awful-lousy-no-good-whole-food-plant-based diet I’ve been trying out. My intentions were good – namely, to cut out animal products, eggs, dairy, oil, etc, for my heart and health – and the science seems to back it up.

Good intentions

Yet, my inner foodie-concupiscence has been rearing up. I started out well for the first few weeks with lots of leafy greens, beans and legumes, quinoa, sweet potatoes, vegetables, etc. Then I got kind of…bored. I would catch myself grouchily thinking, “I just want a burger – is that so wrong?”

Admittedly, I hadn’t acquired a good habit of “eating clean”, so the whole practice of dieting felt onerous. I would frequently just throw out my good intentions, knowing that whatever I was going to eat was not especially healthy. An audiobook I listened to about this diet extolled how it can extend one’s life for years. I was thinking to myself, “Why would I want to do that, when this doesn’t feel like living at all?” Ha.

St. Paul’s complaint

I always go back to the pivotal epistle of St. Paul (Romans 8) when it comes to the mystery of knowing the good and being unable (or unwilling) to carry it out with regard to sin. He said, concisely: “I do that which I do not want to do.” The story of my life.

When I would teach and give lessons in the prison, I would read from Romans often. So many of the guys in there seem to know what is good but simply feel unable to carry it out based on their past or their lack of acquired virtue and good habits.

St. Thomas defines virtue as a good habit bearing on activity. But it was interesting to me to realize that Aristotle was wrestling with this centuries before Thomas and in fact, even way before Christ. He said, “It is no easy task to be good.” I only read that after titling this post, but it affirmed this consistent struggle with concupiscence that affects all men and Christians, from the sinner straight up to the saint.

The aim of virtue

According to Aristotle, the aim of all virtue is the mean, namely, to avoid what he calls the “excess and defect”; i.e., too much or too little. Excess would be considered “a form of failure, and so is defect, while the intermediate is praised and is a form of success.”

For St. Thomas, “the act of virtue is nothing else than the good use of free will.” There are two key points to this. Knowledge of the good comes from grace, from the Holy Spirit, and from the teachings of Christ, the Church, and the Commandments. Carrying out the good is within our power when we cooperate with grace, but this is where habit comes in.

Acquiring virtue is hard

I have always regarded our inherent concupiscence as the attraction which takes resistance to overcome. Our natural inclination deep within us tends towards what is good, true, and holy. Yet, because of the Fall, we are like leaves that float where the current takes them because…well, let’s face it, it’s easier to “go with the flow.”

Acquiring virtue is an arduous task because it depends on the work of developing habits, and it is called work for a reason. To know something is possible – our sanctification – does not make it immediately attainable. If it was, why would our Lord say the “straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leads to life, and few find it”? (Matthew 7:14).

I love St. Philip Neri’s exhortation to his followers: “Well, brothers, when will we begin to do good?” This is the essence of our work, our habit, and our calling as Christians: to acquire virtue not as an end in itself, but to carry out the work of the Lord in our own lives, and to show others the way as well. He gives us the grace to “be good” (i.e., virtuous) because “those who ask, receive” (Matthew 7:7). To do so leads to our own happiness in this life, even when we suffer, and sets us up for it in the next life as well.

The work of the spiritual life

The “work” of Christian living is first of all knowing that what is not always pleasant or pleasing to the senses is often in effect good for the soul. Then, overcoming concupiscence by the exercise of the will (the work) helps to develop this good habit so that we begin to love the pursuit of virtue rather than seeing it as something onerous to overcome.

In the spiritual life, St. Teresa of Avila speaks of perfect union with God in the seventh mansion as the point at which the gravitational pull of sin loosens. Rather than being subject to the strengths and wily nature of the tempting demons, the demons rather fear the saint and leave them alone.

We may perhaps draw the same analogy when virtue has become perfected in a soul: it is practiced out of love, rather than by grit, because of both habit and grace.

Never weary of doing good

Whether it’s a diet or trying to remain in a state of grace, we need to be mindful of that bubble in which we “grow weary of doing good.” It can drive us outside of the balanced place of virtue Aristotle refers to and into the vices opposed to temperance, prudence, liberality, etc.

This is the struggle for me in dieting, of course (Just give me the burger!) but also in my prayer life where I may be tempted towards apathy, or doubt, and falling out of the good habit of regular prayer, spiritual reading, and intimacy with the Lord. It might also be manifested by falling into a bad habit of minor sin, saying to myself, “Well, might as well go big or go home at this point!” The devil will leverage this thinking as well as our propensity towards concupiscence against us.

How hard it is to be good! But then again, all things worth something, cost something.