Understanding discipline in order to be disciplined

"Discipline is a necessary spell we create ourselves to focus our energies on what is the right thing to do and is also important - then doing it," Izz.

Discipline is a very significant word in the human vocabulary. From a community point of view, it makes us live together in harmony or at least aspire to. It makes people behave in better ways that acknowledge the need for common existence - without discipline, everybody would do as they please and somewhat, a chaos point would be reached pervasively and our relations with others would be a mess. But my interest in this word at this point is more on a personal level. Personal discipline. It is this, albeit not alone, that makes great people that: Great People. That makes succesful people a success. That makes lovely kids lovely. That makes the alchemist, a master. That makes you and me marvellous in our desired ways or just downright mediocre - depending on which side of the descipline fence we choose to stand on.

I've chosen to stand on the committed side of the descipline and do what I set out to do - I try to make it consistent. I really try. And boy is this tough. The hardships on this side of the fence would make one swear it's not worth it - that one should just be on the lounging side and just throwing up their feet and waiting for life to happen whilst embracing mediocrity (we do embrace it by virtue of not choosing to be great).

But I can't pick the other side of the fence - which I lived at for long enough and all it's done for me was play games with my soul and live me right where I was since choosing that side many years ago. I wonder which side you stand on. The committed side of the discipline or the lounging side (which can be chosen by virtue of not choosing the other).

Courtesy of dictionary.com, I pulled out the following meanings of the word discipline:

• Training to act in accordance with rules
• Behavior in accord with rules of conduct; behavior and order maintained by training and control
• Trained habits that separate the wheat from the charf, whilst keeping the charf as that: the charf (my own meaning)

What I like about those meanings is that they echoe what we all know for sure: that discipline, because it gives us so much more than it can ever take away, comes with training. That for us to be disciplined, we need to train ourselves to live our lifes in certain ways that speak of greatness, and oppose mediocrity.

The best part of these meanings is that we can set our own personal rules to live by, whilst adopting the universal rules of successful and great people. At best, we will be disciplined if we have set ourselves a life's vision and mission. In that way, we ensure that what we do daily is getting us closer to our vision. In other words, we live the mission of our life - and if we're not, we know that our discipline is lounging and we will become mediocre people as we watch our dreams wallow in the lost wind.

_Email this to a friend by clicking on the 'envelope' below_

Lose yourself, like Slim Shady, lose yourself

"If you had, one shot, one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted, one moment, would you capture it, or just let it slip."

I play Slim's "Lose Yourself" a lot more than any other song on my laptop. I fire up my day with it. When I'm stuck whilst writing, it panelbeats the writers block for me, because I lose myself. There are other songs that raze my fears and inhibitions to the ground. I’m sure you also have. If you don’t you better start having. It can make a lot of difference between a shit day and one beautiful, productive day.

Slim's words of "If you had one shot…" reminds me that we always get our shot. No. Not just a shot, but our best shot, then we don’t capture it, we don’t own it, we let it slip. Often. That’s why we go in circles about our dreams and bad habits - that's why I do. For now!. In Og Mandino’s The Greatest Salesman in the World (which I wrote about yesterday), Hafiq says ‘habits are good. Just replace all the bad ones with the good ones’. For me, the baddies are being replaced with the goodies since some time last month. But I know that I let it slip a bit. And it hurts me to see it slip of my own cause.

"The moment you own it you better never let it go, you only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow, this opportunity comes once in a life time."

When that moment comes to make it all right. To change it all after a lot of struggle. After the big opportunity comes to make it better for yourself, own it. Like I said I slip a bit (not for long), but I know that the time has come for me to own it once and for all. And so far, so good (notwithstanding the small procrastinations here and there - which are being ironed out).

"This world is mine for the taking, make me king."

I wrote before about shortliving our lives, ourselves. And always settling for the smaller, safer, risk-less dreams or habits or life. What happens with that, I realized for me, is that you shoot for the tree to hit a bird, you hit only the tree. But you shoot for the sky, you hit a star. A damned bright happy star.

"I've got to formulate a plot or I’ll end up in jail or shot. Success is my only motherfucking option, failure is not."

For most of us, failure is an option we go with. It doesn’t happen because it’s part of the puzzle. It’s because we didn’t formulate a plan. We went on with hope of getting what we never planned to get. We believe in luck too much than we do in planning the goals toward our dreams. Charting a path to our desired life’s is necessary. Leave out failure as an option. Formulate your best plan, then go for the kill with massive action. If you aimed high enough, sure one star will be hit – and that’s not failure. It’s a different outcome of success, for even the best laid plans can take a different course and result.

"You can do anything you set your mind to man."

I believe Slim on this one. Yesterday I did an op on my tooth after having missed my appointment seven days ago (yes I got late – bad bad habit). On arriving late, Dr Sic, the dentist, told me that he will not be held liable should the temporary fill in my tooth cause trouble since its date to be replaced by a permanent one is due. He said the pain I had experienced would all come back. My mind, at that very instant, made me believe I was in pain when I left the office. I could feel the pain. Not because it was there, but because a pro told me it may come back. Now isn’t that the infinite power of the mind? That it believes what it's told and can't tell the real from the unreal. I plan to tell my mind other big, less painful things. In short, I’m going to lose myself.

A leaf out of the chutzpah of June 16 youth

I was making a comment on the entry by Kefilwe, one of my favourite bloggers. And since I always admire the spirit of the youth of June 16 1976 and the motives for taking to the streets. For having a goal and charting a map on how to get to that goal. Holding their own until their chutzpah could be felt like a raging ripple, a cry for a better life - I thought I must share my comment to her story. Because that that spirit, I will always fight for within myself that I someday have so that I can be able to use it to also push for change in my own personal wars in which I constantly fight, or wish that I can let the Izz within me, the one who is great, be! And I have no doubt that once that happens, those around me will also benefit - and the ripple effect could be amazing.

Read on this comment:

QUOTE
Hey you. Insightful entry. I wish the lot of youth of today saw things the way the 'war hero' conversant of yours sees them. That we can somewhat adopt their spirit. Which is not such a difficult thing to do had we not been spending all our time perambulating between clubs in town or on weekends in endless house parties discussing Khanyi Mbau and Mandla and how sorry they are and what they have materially.

I wish for all of my peers, Izz included, to turn the spirit of the youth of June 16 into a personal fight within themselves to become great in other ways. Especially in ways of personal development and achievement.

We can never get close to June 16 youth spirit and chutzpah, but we can wage wars within ourselves to win over our weaknesses. You inspired me with that story to write this comment, and forgive me but am also posting it on my blog. I'm feeling the spirit I guess. Mmmmm, Amen. Hallelujah! (that stands for aluta continua I know).
UNQUOTE

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire