In What Order We Should Subdue Our Passions

It is greatly beneficial for you, my brother, to know well in what order you should subdue your passions, so that you do this properly and not haphazardly as some do—with little success and often even to their own harm. The order in which one must fight one’s enemies and subdue one’s evil desires and passions is as follows: enter with your attention into your heart and examine carefully which thoughts, which dispositions and attachments occupy it most, and which passion dominates and tyrannizes it most; then against that passion raise your weapons first of all, and strive to subdue it. Focus all your attention and care on this one thing—with the single exception that when another passion happens to arise incidentally, you must turn to it at once, drive it away, and then again direct your weapons against your chief passion, which continually reveals its presence and power. For as in every battle, so too in our invisible warfare, one must resist whatever is actually pressing upon you at the present moment.