Discipline – ElPropósito4 min de lectura

The best way to take care of ourselves

"The best way to take care of ourselves is through discipline." I recently heard a friend say this, someone I admire for his discipline. We were talking about our strategies for doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done, whether or not we feel like it, simply doing it, and that was his answer. It struck me because it carries within it another great English word, my favorite: accountability, which goes well beyond simply being responsible for something. The Royal Spanish Academy defines discipline as a set of rules or norms whose constant observance (I underline constant) leads to a certain result (I underline result). The science of results lies in the discipline of executing what must be executed and in how we write our objectives. The art of defining where we want to go lies in the purpose behind those objectives and results.

Many of us reading or listening to this post know that practice is how we master a subject, a science, an instrument or a sport. We constantly see the results people achieve. At the Olympic Games, for example, we will always see someone win gold, silver or bronze. What we will hardly ever see, unless the athlete writes a biography, is the effort and above all the discipline behind that result. Endless hours of training, usually at the same time, in the same place and with the same people, again and again and again. The most curious thing about all that applied discipline is that many of these athletes will keep training in the same place and at the same time for the rest of their lives, perhaps without the same intensity, but with the same discipline.

Another meaningful personal experience, one that touches the spiritual side of my life, is the discipline of going to Mass on Sundays. As I have mentioned in other posts on this blog, I am Catholic, and one of my biggest spiritual battles is making it to Mass at least once a week, especially on Sundays. Does it take discipline? Of course it does. Many times I would prefer to do something else over going for one hour a week to hear the word of God and receive Him in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. How does all this connect to the line that opened this post? Everything is connected. We are soul, mind and body, and all three of these great parts of our being need discipline to train. In my case, God speaks to my soul through His word and also through the discipline of fasting. I try to discipline my mind through reading, for example, and my body through exercise. I don’t want to think for a second about the opposite, about what it is like to have no discipline of mind, body and soul.

What is the opposite of discipline? Choosing to sleep in over exercising, choosing social media over making progress on a book (I’m not even suggesting finishing it). Such trivial results take very little energy. Discipline takes effort and energy, and the body is naturally designed to save as much energy as possible. Yet it is also designed to reach our physical and mental limits and push past them, knowing that once past them we will be better human beings. Discipline therefore takes us to places we have so far known only in our imagination. How is that possible? A simple goal-setting exercise is to imagine the future and put our mind in a place we can only imagine and have not yet reached. Discipline is what will take us there.

How is your discipline?

Warm regards and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

P.S. This week’s VELA:

• What I was watching: The Vladimir Putin Interview. There is a circle of people I admire for the great changes they have brought to humanity by doing what they love, and Tucker Carlson is one of them. Doing this interview took enormous courage, and the messages both of them conveyed are worth watching and listening to again and again to analyze and internalize. The world is very complex, and the times we are living in are even more so.
  – What I was listening to: "These Are Your Defense Mechanisms," an episode of Jocko Willink’s podcast.
  – What I was learning: Odio el mérito (I hate merit). Antonio Escohotado is among the best there is on the web. I admire, and always will, anyone who knew how to correct course in life, humbly accept being wrong and, above all, educate others so many more people don’t make the same mistake.

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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