Discipline

I think that I am a rel­a­tive­ly dis­ci­plined and respon­si­ble per­son, but does­n’t that sound lame? I go to bed at 11:30 at night and wake up at 6:45 in the morn­ing. The sev­en hours and fif­teen min­utes I give to sleep are nec­es­sary for me. I do not like the way I feel when I have not had enough sleep and when I am grog­gy I am unable to per­form to the best of my abil­i­ty. Last night I was asked if I ever stay up late when I have to work the next day and whether I do this because I care so much about my job. The answer is no, I nev­er stay up lat­er than around eight hours before I need to func­tion­al and alert the next day. I don’t do this because I care about my job, I do this because I take pride in doing good work. I have tried to stay true to the idea that if I am unable to do some­thing to the best of my abil­i­ty then I should not be doing it.

This, I think, is the foun­da­tion of my efforts at orga­ni­za­tion and dis­ci­pline. The more I con­trol the minu­ti­ae of my life, the more ful­filled I feel. I am by no means obses­sive-com­pul­sive, I make plen­ty of mess­es, I just hate look­ing at them. I am always fight­ing pro­cras­ti­na­tion. If I leave dish­es in the sink for over an hour after I done eat­ing, I start wor­ry­ing about it. I don’t like leav­ing things unfin­ished. If every job is com­plet­ed, or at least orga­nized, I feel quite sat­is­fied in leav­ing it behind and direct­ing my full atten­tion to the next thing that con­fronts me.

I also wor­ry that with­out strong dis­ci­pline, I could lose all con­trol. When I like some­thing I don’t like half mea­sures, I get involved in it. I haven’t and prob­a­bly won’t ever use drugs and I don’t drink very often because I am afraid of what might hap­pen if I release my dis­ci­pline. When I seem quite detached with a new per­son, activ­i­ty, or what­ev­er, it is because I am judg­ing whether or not this new thing is some­thing that is worth invest­ing some part of my soul in. This method might be a bit strange, but it pro­tects me from myself and from the pos­si­ble hurt that a hasty deci­sion might result in. A bit self­ish I sup­pose.

As strange as this sounds, my dis­ci­pline allows me greater free­dom, I can now do things spon­ta­neous­ly. If a friend calls, I can typ­i­cal­ly take off and hang out. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, most of my friends around here don’t have jobs and are night owls. I haven’t hung out with them since my new job has start­ed because they aren’t ready to hang out until I am head­ing to bed. And when I leave some­one’s house because I have to go home and get some sleep, I always feel like a los­er. Maybe I care too much about com­ing home to an apart­ment where every­thing is pret­ty much in place, maybe I care too much about mak­ing sure I can pay off my debts as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, maybe I care too much about doing excel­lent work, maybe I should relax and not wor­ry so much about respon­si­bil­i­ty.

I just find it hard to be enthu­si­as­tic about what is in front of me if I have oth­er things to do.

7 thoughts on “Discipline”

  1. If you have any friends you make you feel like an ass­hole for going to bed when you want to then they real­ly aren’t your friends at all.

    The rea­son why you get slack for it is because peo­ple are very jeal­ous. They real­ly wish they had a job with 40+ hours and a nice pay­check to reward their efforts in the end. They wish they had a rea­son to go to bed at a decent hour. They wish they need­ed to be strict with them­selves or had any dis­ci­pline.

    Enjoy the sev­en and a half hours of sleep and the bore­dom you some­times feel in the mid­dle of the day when you think you have noth­ing to do. Enjoy hav­ing a few dish­es to wash and only you to pick up after. Why? I would explain it but its not some­thing to explain its some­thing to live. Its life. Don’t beat your­self up because your “friends” want you to stay up longer with them. Be hap­py they WANT to see you so much.

    I apol­o­gize for ask­ing that ques­tion of you. In my own defense I will say I asked it inno­cent­ly. I just want­ed to know if you make excep­tions. I know you’ve stayed lat­er with me, but I’ve nev­er seen you do it with a group and I want­ed to know- thats all. I do not think lit­tle of you, con­trary to your belief, for going to bed ear­li­er than the rest of us. You’ve actu­al­ly rubbed your phi­los­o­phy off on me a great deal and I’ve been mak­ing it to bed ear­li­er.

    How­ev­er, I don’t think I’ve been a good influ­ence on you. I push the time you stay with me, I pout when you have to go, and over­all prob­a­bly made you feel like doing your dish­es over see­ing me the most ludacrous idea. Do what makes you hap­py Adam. I am the one who is a los­er for bring­ing such a jour­nal entry out of you. I’ll maybe see ya when I get my act togeth­er.

  2. this entry isn’t meant to be read as a crit­i­cism of any­one includ­ing you or myself. its just anoth­er instance of me lay­ing out my thoughts and exam­in­ing them. its a good thing. i felt the same way in col­lege when i would go to sleep before every­one else, so it is noth­ing new.

    the ques­tion was per­fect­ly fine to ask, don’t beat your­self up over it or think you were what ‘brought it out of me.’ i’ve always got stuff like this stew­ing. it just bub­bles to the top now and then. i hash things out here before i ever talk about them. so be calm, and for the love of pete, don’t think you caused this. you just asked the right ques­tion at the right time to bring out some­thing i’ve been vague­ly won­der­ing about for the last 5 years or so.

  3. Insom­nia is not fun. As long as you can com­part­men­tal­ize your stress you can make it. I’ve come to the point now where my bri­an checks out at quit­ting time and does­n’t real­ly check back in until I walk in the office door. I think I’d go nut­ty if I brought even the small­est amount of work home with me. It’s not that I don’t want to do a good job, it’s just I val­ue my (lack of)sanity.

  5. See, I *wish* I had that dis­ci­pline. I’m all about rou­tine, which is unfor­tu­nate­ly not the same thing at all (so even if I go to bed at 11pm as well, it’s not because I made myself) I am also the king of the dead­line. It left to my own devices, with no dead­line what­so­ev­er, any­thing that I want to accom­plish, unless it’s with every fiber of my being, won’t get done. I feel good about myself after­wards, once it is done, but it always takes for­ev­er to get there.

  6. Good for you Harv. Per­haps I pos­sessed ANY self-dis­ci­pline at all, I would­n’t have flunked out of school. See, it’s all good.

  7. What till insom­nia knocks on your door — Your still to you young for this afflic­tion — but just some­thing you should be aware of…

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