Some say that there would be no evil in the created world unless there were some power outside this world dragging us towards evil. But this so-called power is in fact our neglect of the natural energies of the intellect. For those who nurture these energies always do good, never evil. If this, then, is what you too wish to do, get rid of negligence and you will also drive out evil, which is the wrong use of our conceptual images of things, followed by the wrong use of the things themselves. (Maximos the Confessor)

We drag ourselves down. No external Satan is needed.

The fall is caused by neglect of our own best tendencies.

Maximos' use of energies requires considerable context. Aristotle, especially in the Nichomachian Ethics, gives the proper use of ἐνέργεια or energeia significant attention.

The scholar and translator Joe Sachs has explained, "In the Nicomachean Ethics, everything depends upon the idea of an active condition (hexis) that can be formed by a deliberately repeated way of being-at-work (energeia), and that can in turn set free the being-at-work of all the human powers for the act of choice."

If our being-at-work is neglected, or distracted, or misdirected we will increasingly experience a lack of energy, progress, and meaning.