Stoic Meditation #19 - Discipline

"What is full of redundancy or formula is predictably boring. What is free of all structure or discipline is randomly boring. In between lies art." - Wendy Carlos

The phrase "discipline equals freedom" confuses most people. Probably because their view of discipline is that it comes from outside themselves. Something administered by an authoritarian force and in today's culture, the implication is that outside discipline is unjust, a cruel oppressor, someone or something that impinges on an individuals "right" to do whatever the hell they want whenever they want and to whomever they want. External discipline also threatens such people with hard truths around responsibility, accountability, and consequences to their own ill-informed decisions and choices.

Discipline that leads to freedom is not external. It's internal. It's a skill that is learned and strengthens over time the more it's used. So much so it becomes second nature, automatic, easy. Second thinking such discipline doesn't happen in the moment it's needed, but much later during quiet reflection and while crafting after action reports.

But such freedom - any freedom, actually - isn't free. It takes perseverance, diligence, and a willingness to learn from mistakes. In other words: Work.

Whether external or internal, discipline usually isn't fun or exciting or pleasurable. The very rational for discipline is so that people will do things they don't want to do but need to do in order to achieve a higher, larger, or distant (in time or space) goal - public health, travel safety and efficiency, law and order, saving money, losing weight, exercise, turning off cell phones in movie theaters, and a thousand other examples where unrestrained self-serving behavior degrades the experience for everyone, if not just the individual.

Internal discipline gets us to move forward when motivation fails. Motivation is "I want to do the thing." Internal discipline is "I want/don't want to do the thing but I'm going to do/not do the thing anyway because I want the outcome."

Discipline, whether internal or external, is ultimately a choice. We may evade the consequences of our poor decisions and choices for a little while, but eventually they will catch up with us - the "F" on the final exam, the police knock on our door with an arrest warrant, a diagnosis of kidney failure after a life time of eating sugary garbage. We can choose to discard internal discipline an join the rat race to the bottom. Or we can choose to develop our internal discipline and open our future to a vast array of opportunities.

Internal discipline is built incrementally, with small things. Learning how to sit at the piano or hold a guitar, for example. When we've mastered the the tedium around the small, we improve ourselves with incrementally more substantial challenges that require greater discipline. Practicing left hand and right hand scales at the keyboard or the fingering for a set of basic chords on the guitar. Relentlessly practicing the fundamentals until the truth of them is revealed is what makes the discipline to succeed second nature and effortless.

“We should discipline ourselves in small things, and from there progress to things of greater value.”

Epictetus, Discourses, Book I.18

“... progress for a rational mind means not accepting falsehood or uncertainty in its perceptions, making unselfish actions its only aim, seeking and shunning only the things it has control over, embracing what nature demands of it—the nature in which it participates, as the leaf’s nature does in the tree’s.”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.7

If you want the outcome, but are blind to the life choices that need to be made to get there than you will surely fall short. It doesn't matter all the steps between here and there cannot be known with certainty but they can be surmised sufficiently to tell you the degree of discipline you'll need to reach your goals. Discipline can conquer fear, anxiety, anger, and a while host of strong emotions that often derail our best efforts and intentions for succeeding in life. The road to mastery is paved with hard-won lessons put in place by discipline.

“Reflect on what every project entails in both its initial and subsequent stages before taking it up. Otherwise you will likely tackle it enthusiastically at first, since you haven't given thought to what comes next; but when things get difficult you'll wind up quitting the project in disgrace. You want to win at the Olympics? So do I - who doesn’t? It’s a glorious achievement; but reflect on what’s entailed both now and later on before committing to it. You have to submit to discipline, maintain a strict diet, abstain from rich foods, exercise under compulsion at set times in weather hot and cold, refrain from drinking water or wine whenever you want - in short, you have to hand yourself over to your trainer as if he were your doctor.”

Epictetus, Enchiridion 29.1

It needs to be said, there should be some governing limits around discipline. Too much discipline - internal or external - can greatly diminish personal freedom, opportunities, and the enjoyment you get from life. Paradoxically, so can too little discipline.

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If you have any questions, need anything clarified, or have something else on your mind, please send a DM or email me directly.

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