This year, I will reflect on the four cardinal virtues through daily practice and meditation, intentionally focusing on one per season. After starting the year with prudence, I continued with temperance – or the capacity to contain appetites and moderate sensual pleasures.

This week marked the end of my Lenten Fast, and I reflected on the signs of lasting change resulting from it.

It is purely by chance that timing aligned my engagement with temperance and the Lent Festival – inspiring a fast. Yet, I did not follow strictly religious guidelines, and so, broke it gradually, starting Saturday morning with a short black, then a cup of ice cream in the afternoon, and a Facebook post. I waited until Sunday for a-feast of Korean fried chicken and a drop of beer. Yet I realised, right on the week-end and all through the week, that I did not feel impatience to lift a heavy burden of self-restraint; rather, a sense of spiritual achievement prevailed, far outweighing anticipated sensory delight. And as a way to gently return to my previous life, devoid of the clear restrictions I adopted during Lent, I deliberately focused on minor delays in gratification: slower sips, slower bites.

All through the week, I did notice that this fast had affected me. Monday morning, I was not craving meat, nor alcohol, nor porn, nor media, nor, even, snacks. I chose, on one morning, to not have a coffee – never had nor desired more than one. This feeling of tight contentment continued all through the week – while my reflections on temperance were short, and all obsessively returned to the same point: that the fast allowed me to chance, and now, I should simply maintain habits; and how a lesser appetite for sensory pleasures brought a profound sense of calm, inner strength, and safety.

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