Sobriety: a style that changes your life

Sobriety is much more than a lifestyle, as it collects many and synthesizes them in a single only way of being in the world. It expresses a sense of balance in all things, without, however, excluding the passion with which they are sometimes approached; moderation, which does not mean choosing less, but more simply avoiding wasteful excesses;  responsibility, always combined with freedom; self-control, essential to mitigate the risks of blinding anger or resentment; elegance, which does not only mean dressing well, nor wearing designer clothes, but being yourself, always and in any case, starting with your clothing. 

When we talk about sobriety, there's always the risk of slipping into the rhetoric of Franciscan lifestyles, steeped in deprivation, which concern minorities and certainly can't convince the majority of people. In reality, sobriety, sometimes synonymous with simplicity,  it should be interpreted as a key to unattainable happiness, especially that contained in small things, and a choice of lightness, which is not deprivation, sacrifice, or asceticism, but simply a clear-sighted ability to distinguish the useful from the superfluous, the necessary from the wasteful. And the more we are able to focus on the essential, the more serene we are, richer in relationships, and therefore potentially happier.

The sustainable world, the real one and not the fake one, needs the fuel of sobriety, to turn in a less violent and unjust direction Discover the future of a true sustainability that defeats false in this book. 

Sobriety, in a synthesis of contents all of great value, is a natural, highly effective remedy against one of the worst evils that are spreading in the modern era: narcissism. Being sober means, in a spontaneous and unaffected way, not remaining fixated on our own navel-gazing, focused on ourselves, but discerning everything around us with judgment and intelligence, without always judging others, but rather raising our attentive and not indifferent gaze towards them.

In an interesting little book written by the missionary Adriano Sella, Mini guide to new lifestyles (Monti editions), the possibility of a bottom-up change is proposed again, which affects consumption (from food to energy), relationships (from a couple relationship to cohabitation in an apartment building), and in general our relationship with things. A shift that we can also define as one toward full sustainability, without running the risk of overusing the word, in which the practice of sobriety becomes central. 

At the moment, and with the current climate, sobriety is little short of blasphemy: just mentioning it, in a season of Great Excesses, anywhere and under any circumstances, brings to mind something that can't even be uttered. It's not fashionable. It's not a trend. It doesn't spark social media. Yet it is a quality yet to be rediscovered.