How To Resist Temptation

I was handing over a lexicon to a book binder when a very old seemingly disgruntled man began to bargain over the charge for the order he had placed with the shopkeeper. I was a bit surprised finding the man not answering immediately but instead looking for something! After a while he flashed out a few yellow leaves and said “Look Sir, I have got these gold leaves from your book. You should have removed the precious leaves before entrusting me with the job.”At this the old man was totally embarrassed and almost dumb founded and replied meekly “This book belongs to our many generations and while I have carefully treasured it for my children in fact I have never gone through the scriptures and could not know that it contained such rich metal leaves which had perhaps been used for safe keeping by my ancestors”. As he took possession of the well bound book containing not less than 3000 pages being religious scriptures along with the precious gold leaves he was pleased so much with the poor man that he readily tried to reward him substantially for returning the hitherto undiscovered asset but the binder refused to accept the money being offered out of benevolence.

Much to my amazement as I was observing the past bizarre system of concealing of valuable property, I left the scene wondering how the book binder could resist the temptation knowing full well that had he removed the leaves surreptitiously it would never have come to light! As we all suffer from a little bit of larceny we only refrain from doing the mischief out of the fear for being caught. So the ingrained virtue of the dishevelled poor artisan can easily be imagined.

Resisting temptation can be extremely challenging:. None of us is a stranger to temptation, but nothing makes it clearer how powerful craving and desire can be than when you watch a person's life begin to unravel because he/she gave in.

Before criticizing others I have a tendency to judge my own lapses and immediately I could discover my lifelong habit of plumping for spicy food and chilly ill advised for health. Further I could not beat the temptation of excessive sweet meat and egg till recently. Restrictions imposed by the physicians and well wishers proved to be of no help as I went for more and more of such unwholesome foods. So we are all prone to being tempted by one way or the other and the best course left to us is to train ourselves to overcome the desire.

For me, as egg is my Achilles’ heel, but it still is a problem sometimes. What I love about eating eggs is it tastes so delicious and makes me feel so good and happy at least temporarily. But my euphoric mood does not last long,when I begin to lament the fact that I have eaten it all at one go. I can justify it for a while, but soon I go for eating some savoury eggs almost every day.. So, what I should do? Clearly, I have to train my brain what's really important to me so that it can help and not hinder me.

While the elderly persons advise their children and grandchildren a lot about how not to be easily tempted by unhealthy foods offered outside school or college campus they themselves easily fall prey to the alluring calls of the spicy and sugary foods which can only cause a severe damage to their health.