Based on your nickname, you?

I was recently using an inexpensive paper shredder. I had an urge to put in too many papers at one time, which jams the shredder. Taking into account the time needed to unjam the shredder, the end result is that it takes more time for me to process the papers if I give in to my urge than if I resist the urge and only put in just the right amount of papers. Then I can claim that the "shredder is of bad quality", instead of seeing how I contribute to the problem.

As my aim was to shred papers efficiently, my "sin" (sin = to miss the mark, not to hit the aim) was greed, and the virtuous path is to successfully to resist the urge. The blessing I get from the virtuous path is the joy of the flow when I efficiently shred the papers.

Yesterday, I was in a shop when I was hungry, and I felt the urge to buy a large chocolate bar. Being hungry, it would have been a constant struggle not to eat all of it if I had bought it. Eating a whole large chocolate bar does not make me feel so good.

As my personal aim is to feel good, eating a whole large chocolate bar at one go is a sin in relation to that aim. I successfully resisted the urge to buy the large chocolate bar -- and did so by buying a small one. That way I did not "sin" too much towards my aim of feeling good, because small chocolate bar did not affect my well-being almost at all.

On the surface, it might appear more virtuous to not buy any chocolate bar. However, I know myself from prior experience that if I had "successfully" resisted the natural urge at the shop, it might have caused me to later to be unable to later resist the urge to buy a large chocolate bar from a kiosk.

So knowing myself to be the imperfect human being in these scenarios, buying a small chocolate bar at the shop was actually more aligned with my aim of feeling good than not buying it, because the end result was more aligned with my aim of feeling good.

Modern psychology would probably say that this urge is in my superego. Maybe as a child, I learned that I don't usually get what I need, so when something is available, I feel the urge to take as much as I can -- i.e. greed is something that I will encounter in many things that I do, keeping me from hitting the mark. As this is very common way humans miss the mark and deeper in the psychology, it is a Deadly Sin.

Some theological and psychological perspectives posit that the belief that this urge is a part of me -- i.e. I identify with the urge, I believe that "I am greedy" -- is actually part of the problem. So a better formulation would be instead of "WHO decides how much I need" to ask "WHAT IN ME decides how much I need". And then, what is a healthy and useful relationship towards those urges. And it may be different in different circumstances, hence resisting the urge to put in too many papers, but replacing the urge with a lesser one in case of chocolate bars.

The point might not be to learn to "control" the urge -- we can learn from system theory that excessive control might cause a backlash -- in terms of some systems even literally. More healthy relationship is often to just observe -- and then learn how such urges affect my well-being -- i.e. to learn more about myself. Often the observation itself is enough to have an effect.

We can take a corporate analogy (literally, corpus = body) and ask, what in organizations (again, organization has the same literal root as organism) cause them to be "greedy". In other words, what drives organizations to have an urge for excessive profits that they ignore the harms they cause to employees, society at large or even customers (i.e. enshittification). This urge appears very similar as the urge in humans.

That question will lead to other interesting questions about politics, economics etc. For example, you can ask, what is the aim of such corporations, and whether that aim produces results aligned with the aims of societies at large, etc.