Self-control: How to take control of your time and life?

Chapter 14 Putting Desire in a Cage

Resisting temptation is hard work
Everyone faces temptations, including me.There are all kinds of temptations, such as money, beautiful women, houses and entertainment games, etc. Even the inertia of "let me stop and rest" at certain critical moments will become a very harmful temptation, and they are hard to guard against. I don't know when it will come out and disrupt our normal rhythm of life.

If a person can resist temptation, he will have the foundation to do great things.How far a person can go depends on how much temptation he can resist.Temptation is like a beautiful and sexy girl, she has a variety of styles, making you dreamy and imaginative.At the same time, she said to you: "If you want to go far, stay away from me." However, people still couldn't help but look at her a few more times, and even stopped, moths to the flame, and fell into the embrace of temptation, becoming her slave.So we will see that in this world, the vast majority of people can only stand still and do nothing, because they have very poor resistance to temptation.

In the face of temptation, people must have good self-control, which is crucial to success.People with good self-control tend to be more popular and successful in many areas of life.For example, those who can overcome the temptation of short-term interests and stick to long-term plans have a higher probability of success in starting a business.

People with low self-control tend to have low achievement.Unfortunately, self-control is poor despite knowing that there will be a price to pay, partly because people overestimate their ability to resist temptation.

"I'm sure I can beat cigarettes!" - two weeks later you find out he's still a good smoker. "I've decided to say goodbye to Playful World!"—but you still see him in and out of nightclubs.Although self-control can be developed gradually, just like muscle growth, you also need to do proper spiritual training, such as you take our courses, to understand how desires are formed, and how we can discover the weaknesses of desires.Here I will tell you that practicing self-control means you have to give up a bad habit, just like you have to give up cigarettes and alcohol.

In addition, according to our case, more than 68% of people failed in self-led unplanned exercises-they lacked the guidance of the course and a reasonable plan.When these people come to the course, they generally report to us that after giving up, they find themselves worse, because giving in to temptation increases their tendency to "fall" again, making it difficult for them to formulate a plan to resist temptation again , regain willpower and muster the determination to challenge the temptation.

Insatiability is a cancer

In numerous case studies, I am often struck by the need and obsession with desire.Desires will never disappear in our lives. People's desire to pursue things that do not belong to them is so tenacious that no matter where they are, whether they are alive or after death, people will be surrounded by different desires. He spends his short life with the constant satisfaction of desires, and firmly believes that his pursuit is justified.

When the trainees explained their "justification" to me—one company president decided that his pursuit of money-making profit goals was always justified—even though I assumed a premise: "You need to give up 70% of your wealth to save humanity. Would you like to?" His answer was still "No" without hesitation!I said to him, "Listen, I can't say your opinion is wrong, but it will change your life in a fundamental way and give you a cancer of desire that will never be cured. Once our urges get Satisfaction, enjoyed for a moment, is immediately replaced by boredom, until another desire takes hold of you. Isn't it a pain to live in this never-ending hunger?"

For a high-end mobile phone, 70% of its functions are useless; for a high-end car, 70% of its speed is redundant; for a luxury villa, 70% of its area is vacant.That is to say, we can only use 30% of them at ordinary times, and the remaining functions and spaces are just decorations for life, and they are not of inescapable importance.

The conclusion is: our life is simple and clear. If you want to enjoy life, you only need to keep your 30%.According to the Zen scriptures, the essence of human beings is spiritual. No matter how much material you have and how many desires you realize, it is impossible to truly fill the emptiness in your heart.

Distinguish between false desires

When I asked Duroute if he harbored a false desire to succeed, he reminded me solemnly: "Gao, I'm not like everyone else!" But, is it really different?Durute has made many exciting plans in the past year: quit smoking and drinking, earn his first million, buy a house for his parents in Hawaii... None of these things came true. On the contrary, he The company also encountered a serious crisis.

"In order to achieve these goals, I adopted some extreme policies, so I lost a lot of money." Durute is still defending himself, and he does not admit that false desires have led to his poor status quo.

Maybe you, like Durut, have a desire to succeed.Whether it's the responsibilities of marriage, the obligations of parenthood, the desire for a new home, a car, or a big business deal, it's up to you to do a lot of productive work.However, it is not enough to rely on and rely on a desire to succeed, because the desire for success is divided into two types, one of which is false, and they are highly deceptive, just like those more than The goal of affordability is the same.

Anyone with false desires will keep telling their family, their superiors, and themselves: "I am eager to succeed, and I will succeed." He will also read all the self-help books he can find, from reading other people's successful Getting pleasure from deeds is like someone getting pleasure from reading pornography.

It is a pity that they only participate in other people's lives and behaviors in their imaginations, just like spectators, only watching but not doing.In other words, even if they did, they failed in a short period of time due to incorrect methods.For such visionaries, tomorrow is the greatest day.The truth is, in their lives, the "tomorrow" in this setting never comes.

When I was revealing this truth, many students in the course felt uncomfortable.I tell them, "Please don't mind it. Each of us has false desires in one way or another. We make promises to others, we make promises to ourselves. We know in our hearts that it cannot be kept, and we don't realize that this kind of lie is harmful to our own personality. Today is your chance to reform. Don’t make false promises, don’t change the order, and don’t deceive yourself.” When you follow the plan provided by our course center, you will gradually discover a Important truth: No one has more potential than you, and you must control that ability, not let it overflow to the point where you can't tell what's real from what's not.

If you just sit there and tell the world how great you're going to be starting tomorrow, you're never going to make it.Because you will be buried by this inflated desire and false longing, thereby immobilizing and quickly losing the opportunity of tomorrow.One day, your best friend will leave you, your landlord will break the lease and kick you out, your clients will dismiss your promises, and your family will watch you with pain.You have to make two very different choices: either take careful but firm action on your desires, or control your mind, face your impulses rationally, and keep your mouth shut in public.

Install the antivirus tool

The human body is the most delicate instrument, and the brain is the information transmitter that directs the action of this instrument.Desire is like a virus, it is generated inside the brain, if it is not contained in time, it will expand rapidly and poison the brain.Like a computer, this instrument is programmed with a large number of complex programs—it is a variety of habits acquired by people, and the functional basis of the programs is determined by people's thinking and understanding.

According to their own habits, concepts of right and wrong, and observation, people will have many different views and ways of dealing with the same thing, and because of different views and different ways of dealing with it, different results will be produced, leading to differences between people. The fate of the two is very different.

Like a computer, the human brain generates viruses during use.Bad desire is the most powerful virus among them. It is the sum of all bad habits of people. It will point out a wrong direction for our life and dig a trap that will never be recovered.

When we find a computer virus, a common approach is to kill the virus and restore the system to a benign operating state.Computer antivirus is very easy, just select Scan to confirm antivirus.But the human brain wants to kill viruses and bad desires, and it is not as easy to operate as a computer. If we want to kill viruses for ourselves, we must learn self-management. When we find bad desires, we must not only expel them from the body, but also persevere , there is no room for slack and hesitation, otherwise it will make a comeback in your body.

Desire is indulged bit by bit by oneself.Only by learning to control and manage yourself can you install powerful anti-virus software for yourself to prevent it from taking advantage of the inertia and selfishness of the human body again.

Cai Zhizhong, a famous Taiwanese cartoonist, said: "If you use oranges as a metaphor for life, one kind of orange is big and sour, and another kind of orange is small and sweet. Some people will complain about the sourness when they get the big one, and complain about the small one when they get the sweet one. And when I get a small orange, I'm thankful that it's sweet, and when I get a sour orange, I'm thankful that it's big."

If you don't control your desires, you will be controlled by them.Life is so simple, happiness is not complicated, everything depends on ourselves.The control of desire is a very critical part of the self-control system in the body.In the struggle with desire, I believe that everyone has had struggles, helplessness, and pain. If you cannot control and control your desires, you will embark on a very difficult road in life.

(End of this chapter)