Why You Can't Stop Overspending at Christmas |
Every January, the same pattern appears. Someone sits across from me, frustrated, staring at credit card statements that don't make sense. They knew better. They made a budget in November. They promised themselves this year would be different. Yet somehow December happened, and here we are again.
What interests me is not the spending itself but the consistent failure of rational intention. These are people who make complex decisions, manage budgets, and exercise considerable self-control in their professional lives. But something about the holidays systematically overwhelms their better judgment. The usual explanations—weak willpower or manipulative advertising—miss what's actually happening in the psyche.
The answer lies in an alliance that Plato identified 24 centuries ago, one that modern psychology has largely overlooked.
In the Republic, Socrates describes three fundamental aspects of the human psyche: the rational (logistikon), the spirited (thymoeides), and the appetitive (epithymetikon). Most readers assume this works hierarchically: Reason calculates what's best, spirit naturally supports reason, and together they control base appetite.
But Plato knew better. In Book IV, around 440, Socrates explicitly notes that spirit doesn't automatically ally with reason. Spirit can join forces with either reason or appetite. And when spirit allies with appetite, rational calculation doesn't stand a chance.
This is precisely what happens every Christmas.
Watch how it unfolds. The appetite wants something: the perfect gift, the impressive display, the new gadget. The rational part knows the budget can't support it, that last year's decorations work fine, that the nephew won't remember what was spent. It's a simple conflict that reason should win.
But then the spirited part enters the alliance. Suddenly the question shifts from "What can I afford?" to "What kind of person am I?" What kind of parent doesn't create magical Christmas mornings? What will they think if I show up with a smaller gift? I'm not going to be the one who disappoints everyone, who looks cheap,........