🚀 Day 21: Discipline isn’t an option, it's destiny

Welcome back to the 30-Day Productivity Challenge by the famous YouTuber, former doctor and now writer Ali Abdaal. 

Recap

The last two days we actively focused on reflecting on our lives with the daily and the weekly review. But before we continue with the next part of reflection, quarterly goals, I today want to dive into the importance of discipline. We will see that discipline isn’t just an option, but it is your destiny!

Why discipline

I have recently finished the book “Discipline Is Destiny” by the remarkable author Ryan Holiday. Read my review on Goodreads. What amazed me about this book the most was that it portrayed the importance of discipline not only as an option to choose for your life but as a necessity because discipline isn’t just about self-control but about being free.

Discipline isn’t a punishment but it avoids punishment

The first misconception about discipline is that we tend to see it as punishment. We look at the people working all the time, grinding, writing the extra words even if they don’t have to, and we say: “Look at them, they are punished for forcing them to work.” But what do you have when you don’t have self-control? Freedom?

Hell, no! Freedom isn’t something that comes from not controlling ourselves. When we free our minds from the thought that we have to control ourselves, we only give room to all the evil temptations that await for us. Are you free to recklessly “chill” all day because you avoid what matters? Are you free when you're if you smoke all day? Are you free if you aren't concerned about loyalty, but have sex with anyone you want because you get tempted?

To underline the importance of the phrase I mentioned earlier: HELL NO!

These are all temptations. The temptation of procrastination, the temptation of addiction, and the temptation of just recklessly cheating on your partner.

In these cases, what you consider as freedom is actually completely the opposite. You are trapped in a cell of evil temptations because pushed around by your emotions. You are not free. What you are is trapped, and self-control is the only way to get out of it.

The person who is free is the one who observes a temptation and reflects on it. The person who is free then sees that this temptation will only bring evil and will decide to operate otherwise.

The person who is free is exactly that person who isn’t fooled by their temptations, but works on what matters to them. If you look at a person who works for what he wants to accomplish because of self-control, and you say they are imprisoning them, you are the greatest fool on Earth.

Be the person who works the long hours. Be a free person. Be the person who decides on their destiny and doesn’t let temptations rule their life.

Be self-controlled. Be strong!

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Thanks again and I'll see you soon.

Victor (@observethecosmos)

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