Day 470
As a person who has often acknowledged a lack of self-discipline and a desire for more of it, I am well aware of the blurred lines between discipline and the responsibilities to act. The former must come from the core of a person, while the latter seems to come from a combination of sincere trying, perceived pressure, and compulsive image protection. Discipline comes from our values, and tasks come from our desires or urgencies.
My army-officer daughter recently added to my insights on this when she opined that I have a central core need to be significant. She cited examples from my life that required no fame, no status, no recognition, as long as I felt what I was doing mattered to the world, or even to a single individual. I've thought a lot about that, and so far, it rings true with my recovery self-evaluations.
She is easily one of the most significant things I've ever been part of, and I take her comments to be a combination of her training and informed instinct; her observation was made knowing about my addiction.
I've often been more concerned with what's going on in the moment than I have been with working on some plan targeting a dream. I think that is consistent with the task-focus that changes day-to-day and the discipline required to stay on a more single-minded approach to life.
I want to believe that these contrasting approaches are merely different, not good and bad. But the voices in me long for more discipline, and I'm envious of those who exhibit it effortlessly. I also think the girl is right; I do desire significance, and I would not trade that for a bucketful of structure and piety, or even that pot at the end of the rainbow. I would welcome the appearance or reality of self-discipline if it contributed to my higher values. Still, my gut tells me that trading my flexibility and life-crisis response skills for the image of life-tidiness would be little more than another game of acting like I'm something that I am not.
Now that would be significant, unfortunately.
–JR
Discipline can stop my hunger
Discipline can quench my thirst
Discipline can make me stronger
If it doesn't kill me first
–Joe Jackson, ”Discipline"
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