For the past couple weeks, I’ve been traveling on my book tour for Happier at Home. I love getting the chance to talk to so many people about happiness.
While giving my talks, the issue of abstainers and moderators came up several times, so I thought it might be helpful to post this quiz yet again. Recognizing this distinction has been one of the most important insights that I’ve had into my own nature.
When dealing with temptation, I often see the advice, “Be moderate. Don’t have ice cream every night, but if you try to deny yourself altogether, you’ll fall off the wagon. Allow yourself to have the occasional treat; it will help you stick to your plan.” I’ve come to believe that this is good advice for some people: the “moderators.” They do better when they avoid absolutes and strict rules.
For a long time, I kept trying this strategy of moderation—and failing. Then, I read a line from Samuel Johnson, who said when someone offered him wine, “Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.”
Ah ha! Like Dr. Johnson, I’m an “abstainer.”
I find it far easier to give something up altogether than to indulge moderately. When I admitted to myself that I was eating my favorite frozen yogurt treat very often—two and even three times a day—I gave it up cold turkey. That was far easier for me to do than to eat it twice a week. If I try to be moderate, I exhaust myself debating, “Today, tomorrow?” “Does this time ‘count’?” “Don’t I deserve this?” etc. If I never do something, it requires no self-control for me; if I do something sometimes, it requires enormous self-control.
There’s no right way or wrong way—it’s just a matter of knowing which strategy works better for you.
If moderators try to abstain, they feel trapped and rebellious. If abstainers try to be moderate, they spend a lot of precious energy justifying why they should go ahead and indulge.
In my experience, both moderators and abstainers try hard to convert the other team. A nutritionist once told me, “I tell my clients to follow the 80/20 rule. Be healthy eighty percent of the time and indulge, within reason, twenty percent of the time.” She wouldn’t consider my point of view: that a 100% rule might be easier for someone like me to follow.
People can be surprisingly judgmental about which approach you take. As an abstainer, I often get disapproving comments like, “It’s not healthy to take such a severe approach” or “It would be better to learn how to manage yourself” or “You should be able to have a brownie.” On the other hand, I want to tell moderators, “You can’t keep cheating and expect to make progress” or “Why don’t you just go cold turkey?” But different approaches work for different people. (Exception: with an actual addiction, like alcohol or cigarettes, people generally accept that abstaining is the only solution.)
You’re a Moderator if You
– Find that occasional indulgence heightens your pleasure and strengthens your resolve
– Get panicky at the thought of “never” getting or doing something
You’re an Abstainer if You
– Have trouble stopping something once you’ve started
– Aren’t tempted by things that you’ve decided are off-limits
So, do you identify as an abstainer or a moderator? Do these categories ring true for you?
Gretchen Rubin is the author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Happiness Project—an account of the year she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific studies, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier—and the recently released Happier at Home. On her popular blog, The Happiness Project, she reports on her daily adventures in the pursuit of happiness. For more doses of happiness and other happenings, follow Gretchen on Facebook and Twitter.
*Photo by mackenziephoto.
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