What is self-indulgence?
Self-indulgence involves over-engaging things solely for the purpose of creating pleasure for the self.
In broader, functional terms, self-indulgence is
– Doing whatever one wants, whenever he or she wants to
– Not doing what he or she doesn?t want to do when they don?t want to do it.
Basically: self-indulgence is a combination of excessive hedonism and a self-centeredness resulting from a false sense of entitlement.
Self-indulgence can create major health problems, possibly with immediate effects depending on the indulgence. But it?s an even bigger problem than it may seem on the surface: its potential psychological consequences are vast.
If you are regularly self-indulging, you are actively disengaged from living a meaningful life. One cannot self-indulge and genuinely be connected to others and environments. Self-indulgence in its extreme makes it nearly impossible to contribute effectively in any way, thus making it nearly impossible to experience any sense of real purpose.
Self-indulgence on occasion can be inconsequential, but if significant self-indulgence is regular behavior it will produce deleterious consequences. It?s especially troubling if one stays in self-indulgent mode after he or she reaches the realization that life is so much bigger than one?s self.
Once one acknowledges and understands the implications of self-indulging, and how it takes away from a wholesome, connected life experience, further self-indulging will produce more and more intense shame and guilt.
Before self-indulgers reach this realization, they could be considered simply ignorant or irresponsible, and they perhaps should let themselves off the hook.
But after one reaches the realization of joy and purpose involved with not indulging the self only, then one becomes increasingly more accountable for their self-indulgent actions and is likely to suffer an increasing level of anguish due to real and perceived consequences of sustained ignorance & irresponsibility.
So at the point of self-realization, in order to eliminate or significantly decrease the negative consequences of self-indulgent actions, one must consciously disengage the behavior as much as possible and instead fully engage the pursuit of knowledge and experience and connection in order to increase positive outcomes, nourish relationships, and ultimately to experience genuine peaceful joy.
