Turning Vices into Assets

Let me begin by saying that not all vices are transmutable. That is to say, some things are just bad (for you and/or for those around you), and those things are better to quash or eliminate than try to parlay into a positive. But those vices are probably a small number of behaviors or attachments that make up a minority of your overall repertoire. They may significantly or insignificantly impact your life, and worthy of some or a lot of attention required to stop them, but they may not be directly converted into assets.

Now we may examine what exactly is a vice? For our purposes in this article, let's take out the moral/immoral aspect and say that a vice is generally a habitual or repetitive tendency, behavior or activity that imparts a negative effect. Negative patterns, if you will. They are a cause of angst, frustration, disappointment or other negative emotions for the person with the vice, and often a cause of concern, dismay, anger or other negative emotions on those around the person, especially those in close relationship with the person.

Everyone has, or has had, or will have a vice or vices. Likewise, everyone has been, is being or will be affected by others because of their vice or vices. How we cope, how others cope, how people work on themselves, how successful they are in efforts to change...these are all part of life and being human. It is a universal phenomenon.

The positive side of things simply this: most of your vices can be converted into assets if you apply yourself to examining them, distilling them and converting them. Basically, you engage in a similar process, but use the tendencies in different ways. You may be wondering what I mean, so let's look at some examples.

One person, let's call him Charlie, is obsessive. He dwells unproductively on all sorts of minutiae. As a result, he feels helpless and depressed. His negative mood causes him to underperform at work. His marriage suffers from his grumpiness and dour attitude. His children are picking up on those obsessive tendencies and starting to follow suit. When it comes to his attention that his son is having trouble emotionally, Charlie starts to examine the problem, and sees himself in it. Charlie has had it; he realizes that he's on the wrong track and comes to identify the problem as his tendency to obsess on failure and deficiency. While it would be optimal to be able to control the obsessive process altogether, and there are ways in psychotherapy (especially with cognitive behavioral therapy) to reduce it, it may not be practical as a goal to completely eliminate it. Let's say that Charlie does work in therapy to reduce his obsessive thought patterns, but a residual tendency remains. He finds that a positive way to cope with it is to replace the negative thoughts with positive ones, and obsess on those thoughts. In addition, he finds that another way to cope is to make a commitment to a positive endeavor that he can engage in to take the focus away from his negative obsessing. He launches a charitable project that he feels passionate about, so that he can productively channel his obsessive tendencies. He feels energized and uplifted by his endeavors. His spouse is proud of him. The recipients of the charity receive the benefits from it. Others are inspired by it. His children are learning from his example and are become socially aware and active. And so on.

This is just one fictitious example of how to turn a vice into an asset. There are many others, of course. We can follow this theme in future articles. If you have a vice that you want to convert, you are welcome to leave your comments and suggestions here.