Discipline [dis-uh-plin] : behavior in accord with rules of conduct; behavior and order maintained by training and control
Way back in the first week of May, right before going out to Colorado for a work week (Colorado was
awesome, by the way, and caused lots of mulling thoughts after coming back), I volunteered to help with a ladies' brunch at church. Technically it was for Mother's Day, but all women were invited regardless of their marital/parental status. I guess it's nice to be remembered. XD
Anyway. I offered some dishes and silver to decorate a table, showed up to help get food ready, putzed around helping with the mundane stuff that always needs done at these sorts of things, etc. (It's kind of weird, but I find it comforting to do mundane tasks. There's nothing like setting a table or making tea or putting food on a table to make one feel like they're doing something simply because the results are visible.)
After brunch there was a speaker, and honestly, my first thought was 'oh, this is going to be something on biblical womanhood or something I've heard a million times and it's going to be boring'. That's not to say that the subject of biblical womanhood is necessarily a bad one, but hearing the same old thing over and over again gets a little old.
To my pleasant surprise she spoke about something entirely different. I can't recall at the moment the exact topic (I didn't take notes), but at one point she mentioned having a 'word of the year', or a 'word of the season', to describe one's current season of life.
No sooner had she suggested to write down a word or two, when the word 'discipline' sprang to mind.
This is something that I've been dancing around for years (sometimes it feels like my whole life, but that's my internal whiner exaggerating), but have never sat down and actually pin-pointed my underlying inability to stick with something for very long.
I have a great respect for people who are diligent, reliable, and disciplined in the way they live life. One such person is my dad, who has had the same unfailing routine for years: he gets up sometime between 3:30 and 4:00 AM every morning so that he can do his morning exercises (for a problematic back), read his Bible, eat breakfast, and devote at least an hour to playing fiddle.
When I was younger and my parents played music full-time, he usually practiced in the evenings during the week, after he got home from working part-time (not that music can't be a viable source of income, but rarely is it sufficient for a family of six). Getting a full-time job switched up his schedule, and for the last 12-13 years the practice time got flipped to the early mornings.
This unflagging steadiness has been a great source of comfort: first, in the fact that my dad is a steady, reliable person who could be counted upon to be more or less the same from day to day; and second, in the knowledge that discipline is feasible for 'mere mortals' (reading about disciplined people that are now dead is great and all, but death has a tendency to shroud a person in a degree of myth and unattainability).
Even with this knowledge and first-hand observation of discipline, it's a difficult thing to cultivate.
Here's just a short list of the things I wish I were more disciplined with:
-Reading my Bible daily
-Working out daily
-Art in general
-Horse training
-Writing (and by extension blogging)
-Bookbinding
-Entrepreneurial pursuits
-Getting up early to be more productive
-Learning another language
The only things lately that I've done with any sort of consistency is getting up early (I'm to 5:30 AM now, after months of tediously turning back the alarm a minute every few days), and working out semi-regularly (having an exercise journal helps immensely, as does driving to a little walking trail a few minutes from my apartment. Getting out of the house has an air of 'well, we've gotten this far away from home, might as well make the most of it'.)
The rest, though, always seems to fall flat after a few days of stick-to-it-ive-ness. And the root, much as I loathe the word, is entrenched in laziness.
Perhaps 'desire to do something else' would be a better word for it. When I should be training horses, all I want to do is lope one of the 'fun' horses in a field. When I have an idea for writing or musing, I want to read instead. When I should go out and walk to stretch out from sitting at a desk all days, I want to nap. When I get an idea for making and selling something, I want to play with designs.
On and on it goes. Suffice to say, every time I give in and don't do what I really ought to do, discipline suffers and days may go by without coming back to doing what I ought.
I don't really have anything encouraging to say, after all that, except that I know that 'discipline' is something I struggle with more than ever. The more I struggle with something, the more I know that I need to do it. The problem is buckling down and JUST DOING IT.
