“Self-Will Hath Its Own Punishments” (Day 30 of the Holy Rule)

"Self-will hath its own punishments, but necessity winneth the crown."

St. Benedict says that the second degree of humility is found in not finding pleasure in self-will.

Now, this seems kind of harsh in so far as it demands an impossible task: to restrain every impulse, every thought and every whim and fancy.  In a strict sense, this is not possible.  Temptation would not be possible if it were.

But Father Benedict is not giving us an impossible ideal to practice.

What pulls us out of this quandry of an overly literal and impossible reading of what humility entails is to focus on the second part of this compound sentence above: "necessity winneth the crown."  What this means then is that a humble man attends to what the situation demands of him and does only what is required to execute it.

What we are to do is to cultivate this outlook consciously and consistently.  We should do less because we want to do it.  We should do more because we need to do it.  

Always check whether your moments tend increasingly towards the latter than the former.