Self-Discipline

Perhaps not surprisingly, this is one I’ve put off for a while. I know that the concept is really important for many reasons, but my assessment or perception of how much of it I personally have shifts around.  There are some tasks that I love to do and therefore don’t have much trouble getting myself to take on and complete.  Other tasks as the current popular saying goes, “Not so much.”

Take my morning stretching routine.  Some mornings I do it without a whimper.  Other mornings I have to somewhat force myself to do it and  still other mornings I tell myself I’ll do it later, and later never comes.  So where does discipline come from, and how can I get a larger dose of it when I need it?

In a conversation the other day, the woman I was talking with mentioned the term, “free will” in relationship to her human and spiritual growth path.  Is there a value to freely taking on the difficult tasks and carrying on with them to completion that exercises our free will “muscles” and makes it possible to be more self-disciplined in other tasks and other areas of our lives?

I’m thinking that is probably the case.  Just as using any muscle makes it stronger, and therefore easier to do tasks needing that muscle, so too it must be possible to exercise the “self-discipline” muscle so it works more efficiently and more effectively and more easily.  Then the question I might ask is, if you find that the muscle is so strong it works very easily, then when you use it is it really exercise?  If that is so, might the same thing happen to self-discipline?  Is it possible to get so good at being self-disciplined that it no longer represents self-discipline?   I think I’ll stop this line of thinking before my head explodes. 

I love playing around with concepts like that.  Unfortunately for me, it is very unlikely that I will ever get to a point, at least in this life, where self-discipline is replaced with a habit so strong that it is no longer a discipline at all.

What’s Zen got to do with it?  I’m looking at an old concept with new eyes - beginner eyes - and seeing something different than I have ever seen before.  It's a good thing.  And, by the way...it's good to be back!