What is a sin of omission?

Some examples of things you will probably never hear people say:

“One of these days, I think I’d like to be an alcoholic.”
“I’m going to do whatever it takes to become part of an embarrassing sex scandal.”
“You know, I’ve finally decided to take up chain smoking.”
“What I’d really like to do is put on another 30-40 pounds.”
“Hopefully, if everything works out, I can have a terrible marriage.”
“Eventually my goal is to be so deep in debt that bankruptcy seems like a good idea.”

At least, I know I’ve never heard anyone say any of these things, and I suspect none of you have either. But if we can agree that no one ever says any of these things (presumably because no one ever sets out to achieve any of these results), then what are we to make of the relatively obvious fact that lots and lots of people do in fact wind up at precisely these destinations?

The answer, I think, is relatively obvious. These and a myriad of other highly undesirable conditions are never arrived at suddenly or even deliberately. Instead, they are gradually chosen over the course of numerous minor decisions to behave the same way a person who actually held such absurd goals would. And not to put the matter too finely, but many of these minor transitions are not even choices at all. Rather, they are merely failures to behave deliberately in the opposite direction.

One might say, perhaps, that only the worst kind of art paints itself.