Why Do We Have Such a Hard Time Being Virtuous?

St. John Chrysostom has a very common sense answer:

"Let us then hear, as many of us as neglect the reading of the Scriptures, to what harm we are subjecting ourselves, to what poverty. For when are we to apply ourselves to the real practice of virtue, who do not so much as know the very laws according to which our practice should be guided?"

– Homily XLVII on the Gospel According to Matthew