Our education often becomes the foundation of our thinking, and our thinking becomes the foundation of our habits. Without being educated about self-control, we are far less likely to form the habit of exercising it.
This crucial point was one of the first things children learned in China before the communist revolution left the culture denatured and twisted. All children learned from the "Three Character Classic," a simple text of common Chinese characters that taught them traditional culture and history.
It begins:
People at birth,
are naturally good.
Their natures are similar;
their habits become different.
Habits come in all shades, from rejuvenating habits like rising to meet the morning sun to depleting habits like surrendering ourselves to the couch for a nightly bout with the television.
Self-control lets us form habits like eating well and exercising. Without self-control, our habits will stray toward easy indulgences, which can easily lead to addiction.
Compulsive gamblers who hid staggering losses from loved ones share that their "habit" came as a relief from difficult feelings.
Such habits can ruin us. They are the substance of vice. Gamblers, for instance, have dramatically higher rates of suicide than the general population.
It is never too late to regain the dignity of self-control. Many regain it through 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous that begin by acknowledging the loss of self-control and the existence of a higher power.
Self-control can open the world to us, and let us choose what to make of ourselves, an idea captured in bygone books like "The Kingship of Self-Control," by William George Jordan, first published in 1898.
"Man has two creators—his God and himself. His first creator furnishes him the raw material of his life and the laws in conformity with which he can make that life what he will. His second creator—himself—has marvelous powers he rarely realizes. It is what a man makes of himself that counts," writes Jordan.
Self-control is like a muscle we strengthen over time, a muscle that lets us build a life from our best intentions. It isn't easy, but it may be the most rewarding and important thing any human can do.
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