Self-Discipline

It seems to me that the virtue most lacking in the world today is self-discipline... We've gotten so used to instant gratification that the practice of self-discipline is a fast disappearing art... Sometime it's just too "hard" to practice self-discipline!! It takes a lot to do yoga every morning... even when we don't want to. It takes a lot to get out and exercise every day. It takes a lot to resist the chocolate bar... or the icecream... or the cheese-loaded nachos! Or is that just our story? Does it take a "lot"??? Or do we create a "lot" of drama around something... when really... all we need to do is... well... just do it!

The offshoot of a lack of self-discipline... or the precursor... is procrastination... I'll do it later... I'll do it tomorrow... I'll do it next week. We can find all sorts of justifications for that... all sorts of things that will excuse us from doing things now... But really, when you look at it, all those things that we are pushing ahead of us are weighing us down. We're not doing them, so we just pick them up, like some weird sort of event-collector, and put them in our virtual backpack to "take a look at later... or to do later"... I don't know about you... but my backpack can get pretty full and pretty heavy!!! There's stuff at the bottom of that backpack that I haven't taken a look at in months... if not years... Projects that have been languishing on the backburner for quite a while... Those are some darn heavy events in there!!!

This past week, I was actually taking a look at what was in my backpack and completing some of those things... Because although there are some big, heavy ones that have been around a long time... there are also a bunch of little ones that need to be handled. And a bunch of little things can get pretty heavy after a while! It felt good to get a bunch of stuff done... to clear some space... to complete some things... To let go of some things...to get clear on what was actually in my backpack... Now that I know... I can at least come up with a plan...  I know my backpack will never be empty... but at least it doesn't have to be overflowing!!