Yasher Koach to those who responded so brilliantly and encouragingly on the forum. I'm going through a very trying time here, even though I'm only at 11 days; not 90, not 200, just ELEVEN. What will day 90 be like?? But I know what everyone will say: "one day at a time". On the other hand, as someone so nicely pointed out: There are around 900,000 seconds already that I said "No" to the yetzer hara. 900,000!! If those were dollars I could retire! And we all know that dollars fall very short in comparison to the nachas ruach of our Creator. People die for much smaller, much more insignificant reasons. Let us live for the ultimate of reasons!!
So my advice to all is: Think of all the battles we won. We are warriors! Paint your faces and go out into the street and shout Indian war cries. Explain to your mother/wife that you have not lost your mind, well at least not yet, officially. Throw yourself an imaginary party and award ceremony. I know that I will, as soon as this war is over. When will that be? After 120. And then I'm going to take a vacation; a long vacation, an eternal vacation - to paradise. All expenses paid by G-d.
People die for much smaller, much more insignificant reasons. Let us LIVE for the ultimate of reasons. Please join me my beloved friends.
-Uri
Here I am in the middle of the NYC summer, and my family is over 100 miles away. I go into the street, which is lower than the beaches were 50 years ago. What is helping me keep my cool? It's you, Uri! You are fighting your Yetzer Hara for 11 days already with so much garbage trying to pull you down. And yet you don't let yourself fall, you keep bobbing and popping up and fighting again! So should I should look at a warped lady - who in more normal times would be arrested for walking like that? You make my fight easier!
And Uri, one more note. I learned from R' Guard, and perhaps this is the number one thing that I learned from his handbooks and from this site, that the key to winning this is not self control (hey, it doesn't hurt, but it is not going to be enough for the long term). The secret is turning off the lust.
I used to think that 'lusting', as R' Guard calls it, is natural and unavoidable. I just need to keep working on "self control". But that is a recipe for weariness and inner friction.
The most wonderful thing that this site has taught me, and for which I'll be forever grateful to R' Guard and Dov and "London" and all the rest, is that I do not "have" to lust. I can dodge the lust, rather than fighting the action.
This takes humbleness and honesty and a reliance on Hashem. And it takes a real desire not to lust. But it really happens. And when it does, the power, beauty and simplicity is truly amazing.
Uri, my shoes are different than yours, but our neshamos are the same. I can very much relate to how you are feeling. Keep davening your eyes out. Hashem loves us and wants nothing more in this universe than our genuine tears. The Kotzker, who called a spade a spade, would say, "there is nothing more whole in the world than a broken heart". Please keep working at it, and keep reviewing the handbooks, especially the 'attitude' handbook. When we succeed in internalizing the attitudes, we will be very happy men!