No matter how anyone tries, no one can prevent temptation from coming, you can only prevent yourself from falling into the temptation. Being tempted to do what is not right or what is against your conscience is not bad, what is bad is when you have fallen into the temptation. More often than not, people are tempted by what they lust after or out of their own greed. Most times, temptation do not come with a "temptation" tag on it but it carries the facades of subtlety and may even look appealing just to make you fall for it.
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The temptation that comes to you is not exclusively reserved for only you, many people are also facing similar or even worse temptations. So you see, that you fell into temptation does not mean that the temptation was bigger than you but it simply means that you have not grown the capacity to handle it. You will agree with me that when you grow capacity - mentally, physically, and knowledge-wise, you will discover that the temptations that you easily fell into sometimes ago will start to avoid you. More so, it will now become a walkover for you because you have become stronger than it.
It is worthy to note that the temptation that comes to you, more often, is not to destroy or stop you, but to test the kind of strength you possess on the inside and of course, to test your character. So how you respond to temptation is not dependent on the temptation itself but on the nature of your character. As long as you exist on earth, you cannot stop temptation from coming to you. What you can determine is whether or not you would fall into it. Just the way you cannot stop the birds of the air from flying over your house, but you can stop them making their next on your roof.
Now one may ask what are the various ways in which one can guard against or overcome temptation. Firstly, carefulness in selecting the right company and friends. Most times, friends tend to influence people to do what they would not have normally done and they may end up to regret those actions. It may not be possible to change the nature of your friend to suit you but you can change your friends. So if a particular friend is always leading you towards a particular temptation, it is in your best interest to stay away from such friends. If you see yourself doing a particularly wrong thing each time you are with a certain group of people, then you need to avoid such group.
A friend of mine once shared with me how she started smoking. It was during her secondary school days, she kept friends with people that smoked. At first, she did not see anything wrong in their friendship because she thought she had the willpower to determine her own actions, but she underestimated the influence her friends can have on her. It was not even up to a month into the friendship, they succeeded in convincing her to try just one stick and that was how she started. Now, it has become a habit to her and should could barely go a day without lighting a smoke.
Furthermore, to avoid falling into temptation, you need to learn contentment. Instead of focusing on what you do not have at the moment, why not be appreciative and contented with what you already have? You will be surprised that what you have is someone else's wish but you do not even feel the need to be contented with it. Contentment removes desperation, which can make someone do unwholesome things and fall into temptation. It is true that we should desire for better things, but we should be contented with what we have now and then do not allow desperation and greed to set in while we pursue after our desires.
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Another thing to avoid in order to overcome temptation is competition. You are not in competition or race against anyone - everyone has their own destination to attain. So do not allow what someone has or do to make you to fall for the temptation of doing the wrong things. What you do not have at the moment should not be a problem for you as long as you are making steady progress and one day, you will be able to afford what you could not afford today.
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