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Four Elements of
Discipline
Dealing with
Difficulties. As demonstrated in Joseph’s
life, difficulties are fundamental to our
existence. No matter how well you may navigate
life, you will encounter hardships. The
question then becomes, how will you handle these
difficulties? While our Connection to God means
letting go and following His lead, there are
some things you can and should do in preparation
for the journey. Joseph’s journey was
successful because he was ready. When the
challenges came and he didn’t have a moment to
stop and think about the right answer or
response, he was already prepared. Joseph
displayed self-discipline, and so must we as we
connect to God and follow His path.
So this is the answer to
the question then. Life has problems, and if we
deal with them poorly or in a haphazard way, it
just gets worse. If we deal with them in a
disciplined manner (with planned self-control),
we have a basis for creatively using the
problems as an avenue for future success, or if
nothing else, minimizing their impact on our
lives. Now we are almost there, but we have
left out describing what these key
self-disciplines really are. Earlier we
referred to the “work first play later” ethic as
a discipline, but what are the others?
Four Key Disciplines.
In his 1978 book “The Road Less Traveled”
(Touchstone, New York NY), Dr. Scott Peck
identified four disciplines we need to have in
order to successfully engage and navigate
through the difficulties we will encounter along
life’s journey. My take on these four
disciplines is:
- Work First, Play Later
- I’m Responsibility
- Commitment to Truth
- Balance
Work First, Play Later.
While some use the expression “delayed
gratification” to describe this discipline, I
have chosen “work first, play later”. It is
these words I used with my own children to teach
them this discipline, and it is pretty
straightforward and easy to remember. It was
described in our example above. The tough thing
about this one is that if you don’t learn it
early, it gets pretty tough to learn it later in
life. As adults, this discipline has a slightly
different look. Often it appears as not dealing
with a problem you know is there. Such
instances are common in business.
I’m Responsibility.
Sometimes it is hard to know what you are or are
not responsible for. With my children, the
problem is usually a child not stepping up to
accept responsibility for something they did.
Who left out the milk? Not me. As adults, we
find there are some people who accept too much
responsibility, about things they have no
control over (neurotics) and still some who do
not accept enough (character disorder). As you
travel down the path toward your dream,
connected to God, and as you encounter
difficulties, you are going to need to know when
to take responsibility. The adage “let go, let
God” is a great one. But how much do you let
go? You can’t let completely go and just lie in
the bed in the morning and wait for something
great to happen. You have to get out of bed,
face the world and do your part to make the
dream happen. How much responsibility do you
share? This is where discipline comes in. You
are going to have to take some responsibility,
but not too much, of reaching your dream.
Commitment to Truth.
We have spent a lot of time already discussing
some new concepts about what is really going on
in our world and in the universe. We have
described a fabric of energy that lies beneath
everything, and we see that energy flowing
through us. We learn that we can let that
energy work for us if we let it, and so we let
go and depend on our Connection with God. We
now see others as part of this same
Energy-Source, too. It is in this activity of
optimizing our view of reality that a commitment
to truth is important. We have to want to see
the world as it truly is, and this is a
discipline everyone doesn’t have. How many
people want to live in their own world, believe
what they have always believed, and not be
challenged or even consider changing? As long
as they are in that comfort zone of knowing what
they believe, they can avoid pain. But as we
discussed before, this is not a healthy approach
to dealing with life’s difficulties and pains.
So a commitment to truth means you are prepared
to analyze your view of life, or anything for
that matter, and you are open to changing how
you look at things.
Balance. The last
self-discipline we will discuss is balance.
Here we are talking about knowing when to apply
the right disciplines. There will be times you
will face conflicting situations where one
discipline might be in direct opposition to
another. You may have to weigh the situation
carefully in order to determine which direction
to move and which discipline to apply. Perhaps
I have a project I must get completed today and
yet my son wants me to help him with his math
homework. Or maybe he just wants to spend time
with me. In a very real way, my spending time
with him at that very moment is one of the most
important things I can do, and I realize that I
am responsible for making that Connection with
him. And so I have competing disciplines.
Naturally, balance has to come in to play as I
consider in which area to sacrifice, or give up,
something.
So that is a brief
introduction to the four disciplines that Dr.
Peck outlined several years ago. These are
important tools for your journey toward
realizing your dream.
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