Self-Restraint Is One Of The First Things That We Must Develop If We Want To Grow In Character.

To learn self-restraint is to learn to rule over ourselves, to learn to be the master of our life.

Our emotions and passion are often unbridled, and they often get swayed and carried away by even the simplest and smallest external events in our life. Hatred, for instance, an emotion that can easily be triggered when we experience offense, can make us do irrational things that we would regret later on. 

This reality makes self-restraint all the more valuable in ourselves. The development of self-restraint takes time, lots of patience, as well as inner strength. It demands that we conquer ourselves and our natural tendency to react rashly to our emotions and to external events. 

The development of this inner trait is a long, sometimes painful and frustrating, process. And, it is one that needs to be tested now and then. It is a trait borne out of trials and tests, passing of which would be the only assurance that we have already developed self-restraint and gained control over ourselves.