The Virtue of Self-Control (Part I)

By Engr. Carlos Cornejo

If the virtue of courage regulates our fear, the virtue of self-control or discipline regulates our animal desires.

We humans are partly spiritual and partly animal. We are not pure spirits like the angels and we are not pure animals like dogs. We are a combination of both. We have animalistic desires that ought to be controlled by reason.

Reason or intelligence, which is the first faculty of our soul, is what distinguishes us from animals.  If a dog wants to pee it would just pee anywhere.

Humans reason out before they would pee. This also tells us that we have the ability to choose, that animals don’t.

Animals are driven by instincts or feelings but man is driven by reason. That power to choose is called the “will”; the second faculty of our soul. We choose not to pee anywhere because it is not appropriate for humans. Although in our society some people do, and mostly guys. That’s why we call them out with a sign:  Bawal Umihi Dito!

 

We humans are the only creatures that could choose not to act according to our nature. Dogs will always act as dogs and trees will always act as trees.

Only humans can sometimes act as animals. In other words, our nature is not a given, we have to earn it.  We have to earn it using our freedom. It is some kind of a diploma. Congratulations you have graduated as a human!

Some choose not to enroll and graduate in this school. It does not require any previous credentials or any enrolment fee.  Classes officially start at the age of seven. Seven years old is the age of reason. We don’t call it the age of reason for nothing. It is the age when a person or a little person starts to know what is right and wrong.

The kid is initiated into the realm of morality.  A child starts to commit a wrongdoing and knows that it is wrong. Kids at this age would know how to tell a lie already for example, to get what they want.

For Catholics, this is the age also when kids are encouraged to do their first confession and receive their first communion precisely because they are now consenting individuals. Kids at this age need to be guided. That’s why parents, the first and primary educators of children, should be there to correct their kids of any wrongdoing, point out the misconduct, explain why is it wrong and make virtue attractive. Otherwise, they will grow up becoming misfits.

Although some animal desires in us are not evil in themselves, nevertheless we should limit their use. Eating and drinking is what we have in common with animals but they have to be used properly not just because it harms our health but because doing them in excess goes against our nature. The laws for our human nature are The Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are also called the Natural Moral Law precisely because these are laws based on human nature.

The Ten Commandments were authored by the Inventor of Man who knows how man should operate properly; much like how an operating manual would instruct users how to operate and maintain a piece of appliance or equipment. More on the virtue of self-control in the next article.