Effective Discipline

So last night, when I was at work at like 10:30PM doing the most boring thing that lawyers do (aka reviewing documents) my boyfriend made an interesting comment: he said I have a lot of discipline. Whether or not this is true depends on what your view of discipline is.

I usually hear quite the opposite from the health nuts in my life. While I am vegetarian, I love, love, love junk food. And I refuse to eat anything that doesn't taste good. And isn't what I want at the moment. I eat, unfortunately, tons of sugar. And I also like french fries with my ketchup and salt. And I find myself incapable of making myself exercise consistently (thank God for a good metabolism). In my general life, I am very low on the whole discipline thing.

But, I admit that I have the fortitude to do something I hate but I realize must be done for hours on end. I can, with small breaks, write a paper for three days straight that has become so yesterday I just want it to be over with. The paper was actually quite good. I can, with small breaks, do almost anything for hours and hours on end, pushing the limits of physical possibility, simply because I must. I can, quite frankly, make myself do anything. The trick is, that anything must be something I realize I must do to get what I want.

But so can anyone else. The difference, I think, is in the idea of discipline. Someone else who has to take themselves to the gym by force, and even then only averages once a week on a good week might think that they just don't have it in them to study for six hours in three hour incriments every day for several months for a test to see if they can in fact get in graduate school. For me, it was a no brainer. I would sit for hours on end reading barbri books and testing, testing, testing for the LSAT. Even though some days it is physically impossible for me to make myself eat a single healthy meal (my body refuses!).

Discipline, the effective kind in my opinion, is knowing when to use it. You can't possibly use it all the time; you will burn out. There is only so much energy to be had to wrangle yourself into doing something that is not fun and, at times, if given a choice you would rather poke your eyes out. You must choose. I choose to expend my energy when it is essential, i.e. when I can see the nachos on my thighs so I simply must head to the gym.