Too little
The exception that keeps returning
This extra run hardly counts.
Each attractive invitation becomes a reason to abandon the considered plan.
Temperance
Keep room for recovery, even while you want more.
Readiness to moderate appetites rather than let them dominate judgment.
Temperance gives the appetite for sport a considered measure. Wanting to train, improve and compete can bring great pleasure and purpose. The question is whether the next attractive session belongs in the life and commitments you have chosen, or whether wanting it has become its only justification.
Temperance gives ambition with room to breathe
This evening was set aside for recovery. Then someone mentions a run, and your shoes appear by the door with the efficiency usually reserved for emergencies. You begin explaining that an extra session scarcely counts if you call it easy. The shoes wait through this argument. You put them back. You still want to run; keeping the pause does not require persuading yourself that running has become dull.
Finding the balance in Temperance
A keen runner considers adding an unplanned session to time already set aside for recovery.
A fitting response
An appetite given its measure
I want to go. I’m keeping this evening free.
The runner acknowledges the desire and keeps the chosen pause.
Pursued too far
Suspicion of enthusiasm
Wanting another run means I should stop caring about sport.
A measure intended to give enjoyment a place becomes an argument against enjoyment.
You can question the next session without questioning the pleasure or ambition that makes you want it.
What Temperance makes possible
A considered pause gives commitments beyond the next session a chance to count. It can also reveal how quickly enthusiasm borrows the language of necessity: the extra run becomes something you “must” do. Temperance lets you examine that claim while remaining a keen participant. It promises neither a faster time nor a perfect schedule; it makes the choice more honestly yours.
Temperance in ordinary life
The tournament calendar
Before adding another event, consider what the commitment would displace and who else would be affected.
The replay loop
A close finish deserves another look. Notice when enjoying it has turned into an evening of increasingly cross comments.
Nearby virtues, different work
Diligence
Diligence concerns the care you give the work; Temperance concerns how much room its appetites take.
Perspective
Perspective widens the view of what matters; Temperance helps appetite live within that view.
Temperance and its counterfeits
Commitment on display
A crowded training diary can look diligent while leaving little attention for the reasons behind it.
Pleasure under arrest
Treating every wish to play as a fault confuses temperance with hostility to enjoyment.
How to cultivate Temperance
Notice the argument you make when a tempting extra session appears.
Consider the whole commitment before agreeing, including recovery and responsibilities to others.
Review whether the measure served your purposes; adjust it with reasons rather than with each new temptation.
Try it today
Recall a tempting extra commitment. Name what accepting it would displace before deciding whether it belongs.
Questions worth returning to
- When does “I want to” quietly become “I have to”?
- What did I mean to protect when I chose this pause?
Keep the practice proportionate
Keep existing care guidance and recovery arrangements in view. This reflection supplies no training load or timetable for returning after injury.
Quotations and further reading
Seven selections to return to through the week. Follow a source link to read the surrounding passage.
I felt that in my sixteen years of riding I had given my very best in every race that I started and that I was, therefore, entitled to a rest.
Marshall W. “Major” Taylor · The Fastest Bicycle Rider in the World · Chapter 93
Taylor describes his retirement after sixteen years of racing. The surrounding account names the exhaustion of competition and racist persecution; other people’s wish to keep watching him did not settle what he owed his remaining life.
The best gains that we make come to us after an interval of rest which follows strenuous endeavor.
Frances E. Willard · A Wheel within a Wheel · The Process
Willard recalls finding progress after a fortnight away from cycling. The pause belongs within her learning story, challenging her expectation that improvement required uninterrupted effort.
…it is possible, for instance, to feel the emotions of fear, confidence, lust, anger, compassion, and pleasure and pain generally, too much or too little, and in either case wrongly; but to feel them when we ought, on what occasions, towards whom, why, and as, we should do, is the mean, or in other words the best state, and this is the property of Virtue.
Aristotle · Nicomachean Ethics · Book II · Moral virtue · D. P. Chase translation
Aristotle asks about the occasion, person and purpose of a feeling, not simply its size. Wanting another game calls for judgment about this evening, not suspicion of enjoyment itself.
You would fain be victor at the Olympic games, you say. Yes, but weigh the conditions, weigh the consequences; then and then only, lay to your hand—if it be for your profit.
Epictetus · The Golden Sayings of Epictetus · Saying CIV · Hastings Crossley translation
The Olympic ambition is tested against its conditions before the commitment is made. The later ancient regimen is not advice for a modern athlete; the point is to consider what a desired pursuit actually asks.
But the power of bowling wherever and for as long as they please is too much for them.
A. G. Steel · Cricket · Chapter IV · Captaincy
Steel describes captains whose control of the bowling order lets appetite outrun judgment. The extra opportunity becomes difficult to refuse precisely because they can grant it to themselves.
Some people are never at quiet, others are always so, and they are both to blame: for that which looks like vivacity and industry in the one is only a restlessness and agitation; and that which passes in the other for moderation and reserve is but a drowsy and unactive sloth.
L’Estrange distinguishes restless activity from considered effort, and inactivity from moderation. The runner needs a reason for the chosen measure, beyond either staying busy or staying still.
Now to speak thus is true enough but conveys no very definite meaning: as, in fact, in all other pursuits requiring attention and diligence on which skill and science are brought to bear; it is quite true of course to say that men are neither to labour nor relax too much or too little, but in moderation, and as Right Reason directs; yet if this were all a man had he would not be greatly the wiser;…
Aristotle · Nicomachean Ethics · Book VI · Chapter I · D. P. Chase translation
Aristotle notices that “be moderate” supplies little guidance on its own. Temperance calls for judgment about this commitment and its consequences, rather than a universal number of sessions.
Continue through the catalog
Practice this collection
Choose this approved collection as an optional workbook program, or select individual virtues in My Virtues.