Daily Chizuk #1123

Rav Aryeh Tzvi Frumer, author of the Eretz Tzvi, writes that our saintly Rabbis of yesteryear have ingrained in us the fundamentals of emunah, including the fact that a person cannot get any pleasure in this world unless it was first decreed by Hashem that he should. Which means if a person is not meant to have a certain pleasure, he will not be able to get it no matter how hard he tries. And if he is meant to have the pleasure, it will come at the right time. Therefore, if a person ever takes a pleasure from this world in a forbidden way, he is only hurting himself, because if he wouldn’t have done it that way, he would have gotten the same pleasure in a permissible way. If a person takes money in a dishonest way, and benefits from that money, all he did is hurt himself because if he was able to derive pleasure from that money, it means it was meant for him, and so if he wouldn’t have been dishonest, he would have gotten it in a permissible way at a different time. When we hold back from giving in to our evil inclination, and wait to receive pleasure in an allowed way, the pleasure will be so much better for us.
The Chovot HaLevavot in the Shaar HaBitachon writes, there is no such thing as extra hishtadlut to become wealthy.
Every pleasure we get in this world is calculated and can only come if it is meant for us. If we make the correct decisions, although it may appear at the time we are giving up on certain pleasures, we will get all those pleasures that are meant for us at the right time in the right way.