SELF-CONTROL: KEY TO HEALTH, WEALTH AND SUCCESS

SELF-CONTROL IN EARLY LIFE APPEARS
TO BE THE SECRET TO A SUCCESSFUL LIFE

USA (Time.com) - The “Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study,” whose results were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that children with good self-control grew into adults who were typically healthier, wealthier, more law-abiding and less prone to addictions than their more impulsive peers.  
Problems surfacing in adolescence, such as becoming a smoker or getting pregnant, accounted for about half of the bad outcomes associated with low self-control in childhood. Kids who scored low on such measures - for instance, becoming easily frustrated, lacking persistence in reaching goals or performing tasks, or having difficulty waiting their turn in line - were roughly three times more likely to wind up as poor, addicted, single parents or to have multiple health problems as adults, compared with children who behaved more conscientiously as early as age 3.

  These findings confirm and expand upon the results of the famous Stanford marshmallow study which found that young children who were able resist grabbing a fluffy marshmallow placed in front of them - for 15 long minutes - in order to get two of them later scored an average of 210 points higher on the SAT than kids who couldn’t wait.  Following 1,000 children in New Zealand from birth to age 32, the new study found marked differences in adulthood between those who had the least self-control as children and those with the most:  Multiple health problems: 27% vs. 11%; Addictions to multiple substances: 10% vs. 3%; Low income (under $20,000 per year): 32% vs. 10%; Criminal record by age 32: 43% vs. 13%; Single parents: 58% vs. 26%.  Interventions aimed at improving self-control and behaviour throughout childhood are now being studied, but so far, research has not identified a single best approach.

Self-control is the secret to success, according to a study that followed 1,000 children from birth to age 32: children who showed early signs of self-mastery were not only less likely to have developed addictions or committed a crime by adulthood, but were also healthier and wealthier than their more impulsive peers.  In fact, children coming from low-income homes who scored best on measures of self-control were more likely than others to become wealthy in later life.  We must control the senses and inferior habits by accepting austerities and ‘self-discipline’ (Niyam).

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?  

Kathopanishad ascertains two paths - (1) Path for eternal welfare and (2) path for hedonism (belief in worldly pleasure as the proper aim). These two paths only exist in human species. The wise human beings after knowing proper implications of these two paths consider the path of eternal welfare as cause of emancipation and the other path of hedonism as the cause of bondage. They adore the path of eternal welfare, relinquishing the path of hedonism. ... More than 99 percent people in this world are supporters of hedonism. It seems like nectar at the time of sensuous pleasure, but its consequence is deadly poison. In the path of eternal welfare at the time of spiritual practice it appears to be like poison, because the votary has to control his sense-organs and has to restrict his evil propensities, but the consequence of such austerities and self-discipline is ambrosia.

Śrīla Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Mahārāja :
“A Reply from Srila Gurudeva”
Sree Chaitanya Gaudiya Math - www.sreecgmath.org
http://bvml.org/SBBTM/arfsg.html