Discipline

Yesterday, I wrote about being discontented and how that state drives me in so many areas, now including health. Today, I want to write about my bane: discipline.

It’s surprising that discipline is a shortcoming of mine given my natural inclination to plan, but having lived with that reality for a long time, I can tell you without any doubt that I am inclined to be easily distracted and to be lazy when it comes to executing those plans.

Yet, most things in life require some degree of discipline to get done. Even stuff I really enjoy doing has parts to them that I don’t, and that’s where the discipline comes in.

I’m learning that notion now in spades. I’m not in a position anymore to get distracted or get lazy or give up. I have to see this through.

And in realizing that fact, I’m also realizing discipline can be learned in ways I’d never given consideration to. Learning discipline, I’m discovering, is like learning to ride a bike. It takes time and practice, but the more I do it and the longer I do it, the easier it becomes.

In the end, for me, the biggest motivator for discipline is the goal I am trying to reach. In the case of health, I don’t want to always feel this way, so wanting that goal badly enough becomes its own kind of motivation. Motivation breeds discipline.

So, in the end, for me, it’s a matter of settling on a goal I want and pursuing it. Sure, there will be bumps along the way, but I know I can do it. So can you.

DLH

Roller coaster recovery

I’ve never been seriously ill before recently, so to say that the long term effects of having been seriously ill have taken me by surprise is an understatement. In the past, I have usually been a fast healer, so despite the severity of my issue, I imagined from the very beginning that I would be back up on my feet in a matter of weeks.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Now, granted, the general trend over the past few weeks has been improvement, but the fact is that, while there have been mostly good days, the bad days stand out in their capacity to knock me on my rear end.

The past couple of days have been bad days, the kind that have taken it all out of me. I’ve gone from grouchy to downright foul as I hurt, ache, and struggle with fatigue. Somewhere in there, I know this is not a permanent state, but the physical and psychological effect of even a temporary setback is large for someone as determined and impatient as I tend to be.

Bad days also serve as a warning. This illness damaged my body, and some part of my illness was the result of a bad combination of willful ignorance and impatience with my body warning me it was not okay. In some ways, I’m glad the bad days happen to remind me I can’t go back to the way I was without the risk of repeating what happened.

In short, then, the bad days will happen, and I have to learn to live with them because they’re now part of the package. It’s not going to be easy, but it is necessary.

DLH