On Discipline
Begin at once to live.
“Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn’t matter. Cold or warm. Tired or well-rested. Despised or honored.” - Marcus Aurelius
“Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.” - Seneca
There was a winter in Ohio when I decided I’d become a disciplined man by force.
I set the alarm for 4:30 am and left it across the room, so switching it off meant standing up in the cold. Before bed, I laid my running clothes on the floor in the order I would need them- shirt, shorts, socks, shoes. Basically, evening me would make the decisions before morning me was awake enough to interfere. This whole idea was inspired by how good surgeons prepare for their surgeries to be successful.
The plan worked for 11 days.
On the 12th, the alarm rang and I stood up to silence it. I was already awake. The clothes were waiting. Nothing had gone wrong. But I still climbed back into my warm blankets.
My first thought, when I woke two hours later, was that the system hadn’t been severe enough. I needed a louder alarm, an earlier bedtime, perhaps some punishment for missing the run. This is how many of us respond when force stops working. We prescribe more force. And a generous amount of guilt. We imagine discipline as one part of the mind dragging the rest of us toward whatever we’ve decided is good, and when we fail, we blame the part that refused to cooperate.
The Stoics approached the problem from another direction.
They treated…