Friday Coffee with MAP - June 28, 2024

Hello , and welcome to Friday Coffee with MAP!

This week's article serves as a productive rebuke to many modern influences that encourage the pursuit of short-term or momentary enjoyment. Across all sectors of modern media, we are nudged to relinquish critical or reserved decision making– and it is often caped in supposed push for indulging our “authentic” selves. But by reframing self-control as a force for greater well-being, our friend Arthur Brooks argues, we can push ourselves in the direction of authentic self-improvement and enhanced overall wellness.

Happy reading!

"Why a Bit of Restraint Can Do You a Lot of Good”
_{by Arthur C. Brooks for The Atlantic}

We are in a “National happiness funk.” Why? Brooks believes that it has to do with our self-control, citing studies that show low self-control is directly correlated with lower well-being.

Brooks argues that culture today encourages us to relax our sense of self-control to get happier, leading to an unfortunate result that makes us unhappier as individuals, and therefore as a country.

Brooks notes three common influences pushing us to suspend self-control: excess alcohol consumption, anonymity online (which can encourage antisocial and corrosive behavior), and the addictive ability of social media to make one feel more powerful/important than they are.

The notion that self-control creates happiness is not new. Benjamin Franklin said, “Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society.”

While the suppression of immediate desires may seem contrived or inauthentic, greater self control should actually be viewed as the most authentic thing you can do– and in fact, creates an authentically better version of ourselves.
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So tell us: In what areas of your life do you exercise the most self-control? Have you found that intentional self-control has benefitted you?

We’re looking forward to hearing from you! Have a wonderful weekend.

Thank you,

The MAP Team

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