Dancing on the lock of Pandora’s Box

I’ve been seeing videos of parents testing their toddlers’ restraint. They place candies in front of the kids and tell them not to eat until they come back.
Some kids do not eat them, but many end up feasting on all candies.

I saw another video with an older couple discussing the ‘hard no’s’ in a marriage. The husband said that he wouldn’t give lifts to female passengers especially when travelling alone. He also mentioned that this was a boundary he drew for himself and not forced upon by his spouse.

The couple went ahead and spoke about our primal nature and how sexual temptation is a real phenomenon.

To say, “I shall be faithful even around 100 attractive men or women,” definitely sounds self-righteous and morally superior, but deep down, we are still kids before a box of candies.

“What about those kids who showed restraint and chose not to eat the candies?” you may ask…

I ask you, did the kids who chose not to eat candies really ‘choose’ not to? Or did they simply understand the possible consequence of disobedience due to earlier punishments serving as a deterrent?

Trying to increase the robustness of your restraint, is without a doubt, commendable. Performing tiny activities like the candy experiment and gradually increasing their magnitude, can be a helpful exercise to train your restraint.

But reality stands upright before all of us, grinning —
We humans have desires,
We, humans, have temptations

Even if you are in the process of developing restraint, there is no way to measure or quantify its robustness.

The need for developing restraint is to create a safety net, just in case you’re exposed to a tempting circumstance, and not for dancing on the locks of Pandora’s box and testing your limits or boasting of having ‘great restraint’

A wise move would be to face the reality of our flawed nature and monkey-like instincts and avoid putting ourselves in situations that could push us to act barbaric