If You’re Struggling With Your Desires

If You're Struggling With Your Desires

If you're struggling with your desires, the first thing is that you need to reduce the influx, reduce the source of desire. And no two persons will disagree that the greatest source of desire is your smartphone, right? And it's what you can have access to on your smartphone. And you're scrolling on a YouTube video and something pops up, right? So the first thing is — I'm not saying eliminate, you can't completely eliminate it.

You're going to need to use tech for other things in life. But do you really need it all the time? Just like we're conscious about food, we need to be conscious about what we consume tech-wise.

1. Reduce the Source of Desire

So I would say a Nokia 2720, or a light phone, or some other kind of slightly low-tech phone — which allows you still to call and message and use data for whatever you need, but doesn't allow you unrestricted access to the World Wide Web — especially if you're under the age of 18, right? And you're developing your willpower. It's still under development. This is not the time to give it an avalanche of nudity, which is frankly what the internet has to offer.

That's one thing. The second thing is dealing with desire. Often the people who succumb to — and let me be explicit here — people who succumb to pornography, they succumb to masturbation, they have some form of sex addiction, etc. People who succumb to these kinds of things, often there's some issue in their life they haven't addressed. It could be loneliness, it could be bullying, it could be issues at home, it could be self-esteem — there's some reason why they want to give themselves pleasure.

2. Fill Your Time With Positive Pursuits

So one of the preventative ways — and I'm not saying after it happens, now what do you do, but I'm saying to prevent this — one of the ways is to get young men and women involved and interested in sports, in reading, in crafts, in hobbies, in entrepreneurship. Find positive things to fill their time with that will use their mind, their heart, let them build relationships, build company.

When you have somebody who's holistically developing, they're less likely to fall into this trap, right?

3. Cut Off the Root to Sin — Practical Steps

So number one, I'd say overall: cutting off the root to sin. So having desktops in public places, if you have a smartphone — finding something a bit more "dumb," or installing apps that restrict your usage. Thirty minutes a day, you can't use this app. Give someone else your passcode as well.

Give somebody else your passcode. There are apps where you can restrict your own usage of certain apps, your own visiting to certain websites — it only gives you 10 minutes, 15 minutes, etc. So give yourself restrictions.

Then physically speaking — if there are certain places you know where temptation is likely, certain beaches for instance, you know how people are going to dress on the beach — look for another place where you can enjoy yourself, or come at a time of day when nobody's there.

So that's the first thing: reduce the opportunity.