Habit 3: Be God-Conscious and Have Self-Refraint

Perhaps the most difficult challenge while navigating adolescence is to restrain oneself from falling victim to one’s desires — especially one’s lower desires.

Our success in life depends to a great extent on how well we are able to restrain ourselves and to be moderate in what is permissible, as well as how capable we are of distancing ourselves from what is impermissible.

Why is self-restraint so critical? Satan’s goal is to make you a slave of your desires to the extent that you eat until you are actually uncomfortable; that you consume without restraint beverages made of caffeine, sugar, and artificial flavors; that you find yourself longing for sleep more than prayer; and that you yearn to satisfy your sexual desires. Developing self-restraint as a habit entails making self-restraint your second nature — something that is done almost without thought, without too much effort. Allah Most High reminds us:

[And no one will be granted such goodness except those who exercise patience and self-restraint, — none but persons of the greatest good fortune.]

(Fussilat 41:5)

In seeking to be highly successful Muslim youth, that is, youth deserving of the greatest fortune, it is imperative that you develop self-restraint.

An interesting parallel is that, throughout his Qur’an translation, the late Abdullah Yusuf Ali translates taqwa as self-restraint. While taqwa is most commonly translated as “God-consciousness, ” one realizes without much effort that the height of self-restraint is full and complete understanding that one is indeed conscious of one’s duty to one’s Lord. How awesome will it be if you can look back at your life and say to yourself, all praise is due to Allah that I did not succumb to my lower desires and instead exercised self-restraint consistently!