A word I have been using for the last several months has been recently shot back at me. The word is discipline. Discipline, to me, means self-control. This is something I taught to my child and I teach to my students. Sure, there is a time for letting loose just as there is a time for self-control.
I have to admit, I don’t have the discipline I used to. Not sure if it’s because of age or achieving levels of comfort or a combination of both. I used to work many days 12-16 hours a day. I would work 10 hours at my job and come home and work 4 hours on my project car of the day. The pace kept me in shape and out of trouble.
Now, due to discipline, I have obtained possessions that provide me comfort. Maybe even too much comfort. The comfort makes me lazy and, most days, I don’t like it.
So I seem to have lost discipline to get up and out of the easy chair. I have lost the self-control that makes me driven, hungry for more success. Now, the type of self-control I am struggling with is very similar to what our nation is struggling with.
Our society has worked hard and achieved global success. We LOVE success. However, that success breeds contentment. That contentment makes us desire the status quo and to become lazy.
I teach my kids that, in life, if you don’t control yourself you give up control of your life to someone else. If you don’t have the self-discipline to get up out of the chair and work hard for something then you get what life gives you.
Ahh, therein lies the problem. We don’t want to get up and work for something but we don’t like what life is giving us. Waaaahhh. I can hear the crying now.
“We don’t have any more success coming our way, it must be someone else’s fault.”
“Let me see who I can blame for where I am in life right now.”
“I think I will write a blog or tweet about how wronged I am.”
We, me included, need to grow up and pull up our britches. We need to quit bitching and get to work. If you are busy working you don’t have time to look around at what you don’t have, you learn to make the best of what you do have.
Good luck to all.
