The patience man expends in bearing the little trials of his daily life Nature stores for him as a wondrous reserve in a crisis of life. With Nature, the mental, the physical or the moral energy he expends daily in right-doing is all stored for him and transmuted into strength. Nature never accepts a cash payment in full for anything,—this would be an injustice to the poor and to the weak.

It is only the progressive, installment plan Nature recognizes. No man can make a habit in a moment or break it in a moment. It is a matter of development, of growth. But at any moment man may begin to make or begin to break any habit. This view of the growth of character should be a mighty stimulus to the man who sincerely desires and determines to live nearer to the limit of his possibilities.

Self-control may be developed in precisely the same manner as we tone up a weak muscle,—by little exercises day by day. Let us each day do, as mere exercises of discipline in moral gymnastics, a few acts that are disagreeable to us, the doing of which will help us in instant action in our hour of need. The exercises may be very simple,— dropping for a time an intensely interesting book at the most thrilling page of the story; jumping out of bed at the first moment of waking; walking home when one is perfectly able to do so, but when the temptation is to take a car; talking to some disagreeable person and trying to make the conversation pleasant. These daily exercises in moral discipline will have a wondrous tonic effect on man’s whole moral nature.” – William George Jordan

As I was reading this I couldn’t help but think of the person who lets things slide within his personal sphere of influence until he is backed into a corner or as he is approaching a deadline. Such people seem to calculate their procrastination with precision, expending energy in a large burst just before the time known as “too late.” This is the “cash payment in full” approach to living described by Mr. Jordan. It may appear effective to the untrained eye, but it causes undue strain on the individual as well as unnecessary friction between such a one and those around him. Moreover, the likelihood of failure increases as the margin for error decreases, particularly when the individual is in a mad rush to get things done.

At the other end of the spectrum are those who obsess about things being tied down, and he often pushes to harvest the fruits of his labors before they are ripe for the picking. One of my grandmothers occasionally took this approach as I recall her slaving away in the kitchen to clean the dishes while the rest of the family was sitting and enjoying Thanksgiving dinner. There would have been time and plenty of hands to help after the meal, but she insisted in having the kitchen tidied up before she could join in on the festivities.

Take either one of these approaches to living and you are bound to miss the party at some point or another. Fortunately there is a third, yet less commonly chosen option. This is the “installment plan” to which Mr. Jordan made reference. These are the cooks who have mastered the art of “cleaning as you go,” the students who keep up with their lesson plans and avoid the dreaded late-night “cramming” sessions and the parents who pay regular attention to their child’s ongoing and ever-shifting needs.

These, too, are they who master the art and science of self-control over time. There is no steroid or quick fix to the challenge of building the muscle of self-control. It is an art which requires constant practice, not unlike learning to play a new musical instrument. It won’t just “come to you” and you are not “born with it.” This is a quality of expression which must be developed deliberately, carefully and vigorously if you are to be successful in revealing the fulness of your potential.

Unfortunately there are no guidebooks for these moral gymnastics. The steps you must take are specific to you as the come in relation to the unique set of circumstances you face form day to day. The principles are the same from person to person, but the variations in application are as diverse as the individual members of the body of humanity.

The best place to start is to take note of those areas in your day where you became tense. These are prime opportunities for exercising the muscle of self-control. Rather than focusing on the apparent source of your tension, find it in yourself to rise above the tension, to breathe out as it were, the moment you perceive the constriction in your heart or mind. This may come in relation to a conversation with someone you’ve traditionally had problems relating to or when you have to handle a circumstance that has typically pushed your buttons. We all encounter such matters every day, so wise is the person who learns to use them to advantage instead of bemoaning his fate!

Self-control is revealed whenever you assume full responsibility for the affairs within your sphere of responsibility, regardless of their provenance or their level of difficulty. Whining, complaint and cutting remarks are all evidence of a lack of self-control. Any evidence of these pointless leaks in your self-expression rising up in your heart can be headed off at the pass before you give them form in thoughts, words or deeds.

It is absolutely impossible to purge every ill spirit or every character flaw in you all at once, yet virtually every detail of living which comes to you for resolution provides an aperture for refinement and a means of enhancing your self-control.

So let it be!