| The Beauty of Self Control |
Chapter 9 |
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We do not like to believe that the case is so serious – that a little more than every second one of us is unnamiable in some offensive degree. It is much easier to confess our neighbour’s faults and infirmities than our own; so, therefore, quietly taking refuge for ourselves among the forty eight percent of good natured people, we shall probably be willing to admit that a great many of the people we know have at times rather uncommendable tempers. They are easily provoked. They fly into a passion on every slight occasion. They are haughty, domineering, peevish, fretful, or resentful.
What is even worse, most of them appear to make no effort to grow out of their infirmities of disposition. The unripe fruit does not come to mellowness in the passing years. The roughness is not polished off to reveal the diamond’s lustrous beauty. The same impetuous pride, vanity, selfishness, and other disagreeable qualities remain in the life year after year. The person does not seem to grow any sweeter. When there is a struggle to overcome one’s faults and grow out of them, and where the progress toward better and more beautiful spiritual character year after year is perceptible, though the progress be ever so slow, we should have patience. But where one appears unconscious of one’s blemishes, and makes no effort to conquer one’s failings, there is little ground for encouragement. Hope starts in a life when one begins to try to overcome the evil, to cast out the wrong, to strive for the likeness of Christ.
When a man thinks he is perfect, he is not only pitifully imperfect, but he is in a condition in which no one can do anything to help him. He is unconscious of any lack, and his lack is hopeless. But when a man begins to realize that he is weak and faulty and incomplete, he is ready to begin to grow out of his faults and is at the beginning of a struggle which will end in the victory over himself and growth into completeness of character.
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