The power of restraint

Restraint essentially means holding ourselves back, taking a step back from doing things. Countless times through our growing up years, we are instructed to give whatever we have within our capacity so that our chances of attaining success in our endeavours are always high. And in most of the situations this does hold true. We definitely need to put in the hours, blood, sweat, tears and heart into the task at hand. You are almost expected to be like this raging bull with his eyes fixated on the target it wants to achieve. The probability of this leading to achievement of fruition of whatever is being pursued increases multi-fold! No-brainer, right?

However, (‘in my opinion’, a disclaimer evidently required in anything you write on social platforms these days), a lot of tasks and situations that you face in the progressive stages of life, demand that you rather display restraint in certain (or sometimes most) aspects of your life in order to get the right results. Many-a-times we are required to re-prioritize activities in life, driven by the wisdom that we gain through the years we live. The restraint that we apply gives us time and perspective to think through the direction as well as speed at which we are heading into that direction.

We live in the culture of ‘hustle’ and ‘grind’, where everyone is in the rush to achieve something at breakneck speed and willing to risk any and everything in that endeavour. Countless times we read about and hear success stories of these hustlers who always project their quick decision-making powered by incisive judgement. Hardly do we encounter a word of advice which asks us to slow down, think through, weigh options and then get going. It wouldn’t be a totally bad idea to take a hard look at things, look within ourselves and ask the right questions unabashedly before taking the next steps.

To sum it up, restraint is any day better than regret! 😊