Mastering the Art of Control | Rabbi Meir Simcha Sperling

Shalom U’vracha, Rabosai. We spoke a while back in one of the first Vayimaen videos about an amazing strategy to help control what we look at, to fight the powerful Yetzer Hara of Shmiras Einayim. And we called it: The Check System. We said then that a person has confidence in areas where he is successful. For example, a martial artist. If you have a black belt, who is very successful at what he does, he's not afraid to go into a match. He has confidence. He's not afraid to smash a big piece of wood in front of a crowd, because he has confidence, due to all of his previous successes. And it's the same thing over here. The more a person is successful at guarding his eyes, the more he is going to believe in himself that he has the power to overcome this challenge. And the more he believes in himself, the easier it will be to master Shmiras Einayim. So I have a friend who told me that the way he builds confidence is he carries a tally counter, and every time he controls himself from looking at something that he's not supposed to look at, he clicks it one time. And then when he gets home, he writes in the book how many times that day he controlled himself. Rabosai, he is five years in and he just hit 24,000 clicks. Imagine what type of control that is. Imagine what type of שכר that is. Imagine how happy Hashem is. 24,000 times he held himself back. So we shared this idea back then, Vayimaen spread it out, and the results were fascinating. Baruch Hashem, we had such positive feedback. We got messages that many people started carrying tally counters wherever they went. People would come over to me in Shul and they would say: Thank you so much for that idea. You have no idea. I feel like I'm getting in control. What's the Pshat? What's the Pshat it was so successful? And the answer is perhaps that people stopped focusing on their failures. People realized how often they were succeeding. They realized that they were doing so much better than they ever thought they could have done. Their whole perspective changed, from counting their falls and losing hope to focusing on how many victories they had and realizing how doable it really is, how strong they really are. The point is not to carry a tally counter. The point is to focus on your successes, to make it tangible. Look, look on a paper how many times you won today. Look how many times you won, you overcame this month. If a tally counter works - great. Carry one around. If texting yourself works - great. Text yourself how many times you overcame today. If you can just remember the number, that's also good. The idea is that sometimes in order to succeed, we just need a new strategy. So my message to you is that you are way stronger than you think and you have Hashem on your side. Just focus on how good you are. Let's focus on what works, on how good we are, and let's master the art of control.