Anna walked out of the office barely holding back her tears. She had just been fired again. And it was so unjust! She simply had to paint her nails for her party tonight. What if she didn’t get to the phone quick enough? After all, the company had a great voice mail system. What difference did it make whether she answered the phone or the machine answered the phone anyway? And Alice had been so snotty about it, reminding her of all the other times she had been asked not to let the phone go to voice mail. Really! So Alice fired her. Did she have to bring up the past?
As Anna started to walk through the bustling crowd of people around her she began to cry in earnest. It just was not fair. Everyone else was so happy. They had money to spend and seemed to be doing exactly what they wanted. Why couldn’t she start to get ahead?
John passed Anna on the street so intent on keeping his schedule that he did not even notice her tears. He certainly was not one of the ‘happy’ people that she just portrayed ‘everyone’ to be. He felt as if his life was going nowhere. He never met new people. Very rarely went out of the house besides for errands and work. But then, he just did not have the time to get out. Dinner was at six. He could eat, clean the kitchen and then relax till seven thirty. Then he would exercise for thirty minutes and follow that up with a quick shower. After that he would balance his checkbook, read his mail and do all those other little tasks never seem to end. Then the evening was done and it was time to go to bed. John had trained himself to his routine so tenaciously that he never considered changing it for even one night.
Unhappiness radiated from John as he walked down the busy sidewalk with his head hanging low and shoulders bent forward. He felt as if he was treading through a deep rut day after day; week after week. He could hear all the chatter around him and wondered how all these other people managed to find time to be so happy. “Probably unorganized”, he thought to himself. “I bet most of them don’t even balance their checkbooks.”
Here are two extreme personalities in our society. Anna with her total lack of self-control and John with his self-imposed rigidity outwardly appear to be as opposite as any two people could be. However, their base issue is the same. These two individuals, like many of us, are allowing discipline to control their lives and, unless they learn to control discipline themselves, they will never experience true joy in their lives.
Already I hear the outcries from the reading audience! “How do you figure?” “You’ve lost your mind!” “Anna has no discipline in her life while John has managed to develop an outstanding ability to keep a schedule.” How could they have the same problem? In fact, does John really have a problem? Our society sees someone who can keep a good schedule as a person who has a superior grasp on life. This individual definitely does not appear, by our society norms, to have a personality problem.
Well, to answer all your questions - and to defend my position - we need to first define some terms. Merriam-Webster Online gives three pertinent definitions of discipline for this discussion and one for joy.
First, discipline is punishment. This is the most common form of discipline. It is this form of discipline that Anna finds herself repeatedly facing with her bosses. She does not, or can not, control herself enough to perform even the simplest of tasks with any regularity. This total lack of self-control that Anna exhibits allows those who have authority in her life to righteously wield punishment, such as releasing her from work. She is left with feelings of anger and resentment. Any happiness that she might have with her life is obliterated. Since there is no control of her actions, Anna has absolutely no control over discipline.
The second definition of discipline is control gained by enforcing an orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior. We see this form of discipline in a school where everyone must follow set rules so that order is maintained. Our society too has a set of rules defining the base conduct that we all must follow; our laws. It is this form of discipline that John is inflicting upon himself. I will not call it self-control but rather self-discipline. He may find this system of regulation makes it easier for him to deal with his every day tasks, but it is not bringing him any happiness. In fact, he feels as if he is in a rut. His self-discipline has power over him; John has no control of discipline.
Now, before we get to the final definition of discipline pertinent to this discussion let’s take a moment to define joy. Again, going back to Merriam-Webster Online we see that joy is the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune. I have heard it said that joy is the ability to be grateful no matter what the circumstances. It is impossible to have this feeling of joy in your life without having control of discipline; without knowing that you have the freedom to be who you are while maintaining the basic morals that give us an orderly society.
It is in the final definition of discipline that we see the path to joy. Discipline is training that corrects, molds or perfects the mental facilities or moral character. I call this self-control. It is the ability to do what is right, not because it is what is expected of us from outside influences, but because we recognize internally that it is the correct course of action for us.
If we look at John, his actions are being enforced. He feels obligated to perform all his tasks in a timely manner. We know this not by looking at the actions themselves, but by seeing what he is feeling. If he were choosing these actions because he truly felt they were the correct path for him to take, he would not feel as if he was in a rut but instead he would feel the freedom of making those choices. He would grateful for his circumstances in life - he would feel joy.
The same reasoning applies to Anna. She is repeatedly fired because she is not performing the commitments that she has agreed to when accepting a job. If she were to take the time to show a little self-control before taking a job by looking at all the responsibilities and ensuring she could and would perform them, then she could go to work daily with peace of mind. Anna would be taking the steps to control her own discipline, thus not allowing discipline to control her. By taking this action Anna, like John, would allow joy to enter her life.
Again, John and Anna represent extreme examples of discipline being in control. Most of us are not so excessively out of control in our lives. However, there may be some area in where discipline has domination. Some internal searching to determine where our joy is missing might help identify that part which is being controlled by discipline. With training we can give ourselves a firm grasp of self-control refusing to allow discipline to control us. We can control discipline and have complete joy in our lives.
Sherril Barnes writer, photographer and artist located on Long Island, New York reflects on not only who she is as a person, but also how she and others view the world. Her message carries the distinctive flavor of her unique thinking plus the warmth of her caring, creative personality. “The world is already full of too much pain and suffering. I am trying to reintroduce people to their inner imagination, that part of their souls that is filled with dreams, fairy tales, hopes and beauty.” She went on to explain that Emerson expressed in one short quote what she was trying to bring to the public, “… the illusion of a loftier reality.”
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