June 1
With every pleasure: wait. Hold both times before your eyes — the one in which you will enjoy it, and the one in which, afterwards, you regret it and reproach yourself. And against these: how you will rejoice and praise yourself if you have abstained.
Enchiridion, 34
Listening mode
With every pleasure: wait. Hold both times before your eyes — the one in which you will enjoy it, and the one in which, afterwards, you regret it and reproach yourself. And against these: how you will rejoice and praise yourself if you have abstained.
Some decisions you judge twice, once beforehand and once afterwards. The moment in between rarely gets a say. Beforehand it is the wish that speaks, loud and present. Afterwards someone speaks who no longer feels it and can therefore easily be strict.
This later judge is not necessarily wiser. He knows the outcome, but he no longer feels the pressure. When he scolds you, he acts as if you could have chosen as calmly as he now judges. His praise isn't entirely above suspicion either. Giving yourself credit for going without can become a pleasure of its own, and a rather sweet one.
Still, it is worth hearing him out beforehand. He isn't always right. But while you wait, both are there at once: the wish that still feels warm, and the memory of earlier evenings when it felt just as warm. For a moment you are not entirely on one side of time.
Sometimes you then decide just as you would have without the waiting. Only the later one can no longer reproach you for not having asked him.
