Excerpt from “Fixing Your Water” 05 [1]

Developing Restraint

We are living in a generation with an unprecedented amount of desires. This past week, on Erev Shavuos, I had to go the market, and I came across places that were selling 1,200 different kinds of cheesecake. 1,200 kinds of cheesecake! I am not exaggerating. (But people justify this by saying, “It’s a minhag in Klal Yisrael to eat cheesecake…”)

People are growing up in a generation that is full of physical desires; how can a person avoid chasing them??

A person has to uncover a deep, tranquil place in his soul in which he can reflect about this, how problematic it is, and how it prevents us from living a true and spiritual life. This is the most important part of the solution of fixing the problem.

At a later stage, you can begin to work on how you will actually accomplish avoiding desires, but the first stage is the most important: to reflect deeply about the kind of situation we are living in, and to realize how the lifestyle of this generation contradicts the truth we aspire for.

The contradiction you notice, upon making this reflection, has to bother you. If it bothers you, you already have the key to putting a restraint on your pull towards physical desires.