Many of us have difficulty with a particular vice in our lives, a vice that we can't seem to quit.
While there are a variety of ways to stop a vice, one of the most effective ways is to practice the opposite virtue.
This is a method promoted by many saints over the years.
Fight vice with virtue
St. Francis de Sales recommends this approach in his Introduction to the Devout Life:
When we are beset by any particular vice, it is well as far as possible to make the opposite virtue our special aim, and turn everything to that account; so doing, we shall overcome our enemy, and meanwhile make progress in all virtue.
He then gives specific examples as to how someone would put this method into action:
Thus, if I am beset with pride or anger, I must above all else strive to cultivate humility and gentleness, and I must turn all my religious exercises,—prayer, sacraments, prudence, constancy, moderation, to the same object.
St. Francis de Sales also suggests that our practice of virtue needs to be strengthened by other virtues, as they are all interconnected:
The wild boar sharpens its tusks by grinding them against its other teeth, which by the same process are sharpened and pointed; and so when a good man endeavors to perfect himself in some virtue which he is conscious of specially needing, he ought to give it edge and point by the aid of other virtues, which will themselves be confirmed and strengthened as he uses them with that object.
Above all, we need to be conscious of our own vices and to do what we can to root them out. It will not be easy, but if we focus our attention on one particular vice with its opposing virtue, we will have a greater chance of success.
