Is staying away from alcoholic friends escapism?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, if I don’t want to get carried away by drinking alcohol but all my friends are alcoholics then if I stay away from them then I am being an escapist.
Is it advisable to do that? There is avoidable dangers and there is unavoidable dangers. So, in many ways the best way to maintain self-control is to avoid situations that require self-control. That is the best way.
So, for example, somebody has got diabetes and they don’t want to they are told not to eat sweet foods. Now, if they keep sweet foods close to them just keep it in their drawer below them I am not going to eat it. Maybe I will give it to friends when they come.
I may normally think I will not eat. But, suppose suddenly I am working on my computer, I am talking on my phone, at that time suddenly I get a snack attack. I get attacked by the desire for a snack.
Now, at that time if I have some healthy food, I have some fruit or some carrot or some salad or something, I will take that. But if that fatty food is there, that’s where my hand will go and I will take it. That’s simply unavoidable.
I mentioned I was in Google a few weeks ago. So, in Google they did an experiment because software companies often, most of the work is sedentary. So, there people tend to become obese and people get health problems.
So, they wanted to cut down the amount of sweet foods that people eat. So, they on the advice of some experts, all the in their cafeteria, all the sweet items that were there, chocolates or candies or whatever, earlier they were in transparent boxes. They just get paper coverings around the transparent boxes.
And not paper coverings that advertise what is there. No, just paper coverings that cover, you can’t see what is there. Still, if somebody wants to eat the sweet, they will order and they will be given that.
They found just by covering those containers, almost 30% of the sales of candies went down. And they found correspondingly people’s diabetes and other problems decreased. So, many times, some temptations are simply circumstantial.
If I am in that tempting situation, I just enjoy it. If it is not easily available, I will not eat. Now, sometimes some desires can be very deep rooted also.
If I have a strong desire to eat a candy, I will go to a shop and I will drink it. I will buy it and I will take it. Psychologists call this propinquity.
Propinquity means the effect of time and distance on behavior. If some food item I want to eat, it is readily available, I will eat it. If I have to put a lot of effort, okay, maybe later.
So, in general, the best way to maintain self-control is to avoid situations that require self-control. Now, we can’t always avoid those situations. But if it is possible to avoid them, it’s best to avoid them.
And that’s not escapism. That’s pragmatism. Pragmatism means, why waste my energy on this? See, our willpower is not an infinite resource.
Our willpower is a finite resource. And I resist temptation once, twice, five, four times, five times. My willpower resource is getting depleted.
And after some time, it will be over and the same temptation which I would have resisted, say in the morning, then evening, the same temptation comes. I’m already so tired, let’s leave it. So, basically, if we put ourselves in tempting situations again and again, then our finite willpower resource will get depleted and we will succumb.
So, if you are going, if it’s a formal occasion where there is a valedictory party or there is a professional celebration, and then you are expected to go, then going there and not taking drinks, that’s fine. But if it’s just an occasion for hanging out with people, then there are healthier places to hang out. And we may, some friends may hold it against us.
But there are others who will not. If our friends don’t allow us to be who we want to be or who we are, then we have to rethink. Are these the kind of friends I want to be with? We want our friends, we don’t want to force our friends, we don’t want to moralize and say that they are doing something wrong.
That’s not the forum for saying that. But our point is that we want to be who we are. So there is nothing wrong in avoiding tempting situations.
But we don’t have to depend only on avoidance. We also need willpower. We also need intelligence.
We also need strategies. If I am in that situation, how will I deal with it? But it’s not that not going into the situation is escapism. It’s simply pragmatism.
We conserve our willpower so that it can be used for a better purpose.