The Price of Indulgence – Sunday, February 23, 1986
The prosperity in today’s modern societies is unlike anything the world has seen before, Granted, there is still hunger and need in the world, but by and large in this country and in most modern civilizations luxury and extravagance are the rule, not the exception.
As with all gifts, however, prosperity is a double-edged sword: on the one side, the ability to eradicate sickness, impoverishment, and ignorance; and, on the other, the danger of indulgence.
Overindulgence is the use of personal and national affluence to pamper and gratify every appetite of ourselves and our children; it is to yield to our every wish and to avoid every disappointment and challenge. In so doing, we trade the greater for the lesser; we exchange character for pleasure.
Overindulgence is to eat without need, to be more concerned with entertainment than learning, to gratify our bodies to the exclusion of our souls. It is to give our children everything they want, with no consideration for what need; to carry them wherever they go, to insure that they are never frustrated or dissatisfied.
If life were all roses, there would be no price for excessive gratification. If there were no sickness, no automobile, accidents, no deaths of loved ones, then indulgence would carry no penalty.
But, life is both bitter and sweet, and those who live successfully have developed the skills to deal with disappointment and challenges as well as with happiness and fortune. An Arabian proverb states that all sunshine makes a desert. The proverb holds true for character development—for all pleasure makes an impoverished soul.
The results of indulgence are as predictable as the products of mathematical equations:
selfishness—for he who needs nothing recognizes no needs in others; lack of empathy—for he who shed no tears cannot understand the tears of others; ingratitude—for gratitude is a product of unmet desires.
A life of indulgence is a life sickly sweet: a boring, unchallenging, and unfulfilled existence—a long yawn, with all the difficulties removed, interspersed with periods of eating and sleeping.
One who has everything probably lacks one thing that is truly necessary for happiness—Character. Character is the basic ingredient of a fruitful life, and it withers and dies when smothered by overindulgence.
Yes, we now have the means to indulge ourselves and our children, but that would be counterproductive, for the objective of life is not pleasure—but happiness.
February 23, 1986
Broadcast Number 2,949