No one likes a prophet of doom, but here goes: You will fail.
As sure as the sun rises in the east, there will be times when you will not guard your eyes properly. ּThis is simply a pasuk: There is no man on Earth who will do only good and will never sin.
In fact, in all likelihood you will fail repeatedly. But do not get discouraged.
Let me tell you a story about a very great man who failed in a most heartbreaking manner, but who “pulled it together” to the degree that Klal Yisrael is forever indebted to him because of his perseverance.
There was once a saintly old man who poured his heart and soul into teaching Torah. He had been ignorant until his 40’s, when he met his wife who encouraged him to learn. The rest, as they say, is history.
R’ Akiva eventually became a leader of the Jewish nation and the Rosh Yeshivah of an academy attended by 24,000 students who came from far and near to immerse themselves in the Torah he taught.
However, despite R’ Akiva’s brilliance and the student’s diligence, something, somehow, was deficient. In some manner, Heaven found the disciples to be lacking the full and proper respect that they should have had for one another, and therefore deserving of a terrible punishment. An illness began coursing through the student body, and thousands succumbed, day after day. All told, over the course of a relatively short period of time, all 24,000 of R' Akiva's students had passed away. R’ Akiva was left alone.
After dedicating his life to implanting Torah into the best minds of his generations, he was left with nothing.
According to many opinions, the thirty-third day of the counting of the Omer is the day on which the dying stopped. And that, we are told, is why we celebrate Lag B’Omer.
Some reason to celebrate!
The end result of a plague was … that there was no one left to die!
Is this reason for celebration?
Rav Gedaliah Schorr explains:
We rejoice because R’ Akiva refused to despair!
Instead of falling victim to hopelessness, R’ Akiva rededicated himself to his mission and fulfilled it.
In the words of R' Schorr:
Even if one has not learned properly ... on Lag B’Omer he should ... take a lesson from R’ Akiva ... He developed five new disciples, among them R’ Shimon bar Yochai, and it was through them that Torah was disseminated among Israel ... So too, a Jew should not let past failures and difficult situations lead him to despair ...
According to R’ Schorr, Lag B’Omer is a day that is designated to celebrate perseverance.
True, you will not always successfully guard your eyes. But when you fail, get back up and keep fighting. Think of R’ Akiva, whose calamity could have broken him completely, but whose perseverance produced the very talmidim through whom we have Torah today