A few weeks ago I purchased a cute little journal for 2013 already neatly subdivided with handy dandy tabs to list my favorite music, books, movies, restaurants, etc. With a fun and seemingly fitting front cover, a pop art cartoon girl with dark hair and green eyes—coincidence I think not—ironically utters “I can resist everything except temptation.” This could have been the mantra for every New Year’s resolution that I have ever made, but instead it is clever use of one of Oscar Wilde’s famous quotations, unbeknownst to me.
I wanted to think of a catchy name that embodied this notion for this blog. Out of practice as an English teacher/talking and walking thesaurus, I googled synonyms for resist and before I could type in the word synonyms the quotation “resist the devil and he will flee” popped up. Ahah! I could equate temptation with the devil (a stunning revelation, I know) and add a little alliteration to make the address of the blog Defying the Devil. Interestingly some religious enthusiasts had not taken this name (perhaps this was a sign from God in itself) and voila, I was ready to write.
In my daily life the devil is not so much a pitchfork carrying, red-horned creature, but instead a myriad of bad habits: laziness, overeating, lack of exercise, etc. The upshot of this is that I have a new mantra to defy by truly resisting temptation and defying my daily devils.
