In Defense of Discipline

I used to hate discipline. I hated when people talked about it and when my parents and teachers "disciplined" me. I resisted every attempt that someone made to teach me discipline. It was just a code word for "boring" or "tedious" or "punishment".

These external sources of discipline had my best interest at heart and they were trying to help me become a better person, but I didn't understand that. The external discipline they exerted on me was resisted.

I think that my hatred for discipline started to fade when I saw the reward for being disciplined. I don't mean having someone else keep me in line, that's not the sort of "being disciplined" that I'm talking about. I mean being self-disciplined. I'm talking about setting a goal and sticking to it even when you don't want to. I'm talking about holding yourself accountable for your action or your inaction as the case may be. I'm talking about taking ownership and responsibility for my life. That's the "being disciplined" that I'm talking about.

Self-discipline is good. It's what gets you out of bed in the morning to go do things that maybe you don't want to, but know you should do. When you're disciplined, your actions don't depend on your feelings or circumstances. You do what you should do often in spite of what you want.

I don't think I need to describe what happens when we only do things we want to instead of the things we should do. Everyone knows someone that lacks the self-discipline to do the things that they know they should do in favor of the things they want to do and we've seen how that pans out for that person. Personally, I've never met anyone who fits that description that has had life turn out positively. Invariably, that person ends up in an unhappy place filled with regrets.

Self-discipline is a characteristic that isn't held in high esteem in modern Western culture. Ok, whatever. Of course the culture we live in influences us and our kids, but so do I. I get to have an influence on my kids too. I get to set the example for how I want my kids to live. Since self-discipline is a good and important characteristic that I want my kids to have, I need to practice it. I need to be the change I want to see both in the world and in my world.

What should you do that you're not doing? Do you have the discipline to get after it, or will you only do it if you want to? Yeah, good luck with that.