One great irony of the Modern Millennial work-from-home/entrepreneur/artist lifestyle is that pretty much no one tells us what to do – except ourselves. And me, I hate being told what to do…even when it’s my own damn self I have to listen to.
I am not a 6:00am, run, meditate, gratitude practice, ice bath, and a smoothie before checking my email right at 8 every single day kind of a guy.
Frankly, fuck those guys.
But somehow my YouTube algorithm has convinced me that I need to be one of these people to feel good about my life. Which begs some questions about what “discipline” actually is.
It's very easy to use words like “should'' when trying to define discipline – but “should'' is a matter of extrinsic motivation, someone else’s validation. In many cases, these are the unattainable expectations of what you think that girl you went to college with who’s now on Forbes 30 Under 30 is doing every day. Or, perhaps more likely, they come from your good old mom or dad1.
But etymologically speaking, discipline comes from the Latin root “discipulus,” meaning “student,” or someone seeking knowledge2.
To be a student, to be in pursuit of one’s own learning, of course, implies seeking instruction from someone else. But there’s a big difference between instruction and validation.
But etymologically speaking, discipline comes from the Latin root “discipulus,” meaning “student,” or someone seeking knowledge.
The truth is there are a lot of things I want to learn and do3 – and I very rarely do them all. So, productivity hacks like time blocking or habit stacking can definitely come in handy.
But you know what else I need? To sit and stare at the ceiling without a care in the world for how long I’ve given myself to do that.
Case in point, I once heard Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) tell the real story about his founding myth: that he went off to the woods with a broken heart and emerged with For Emma, Forever Ago.
In fact, he just let himself get really, really bored.
“I was just there allowing myself to have a day where nothing happened for the first time in my life and not have any guilt about it.“
He’d essentially given up on his music career, was all set to go back to school in the fall, so he spent his time getting stoned, drinking beer, and watching DVDs of some old ‘90s TV show Northern Exposure where all the characters said “bon hiver4” to each other when it snowed.
Then, when he felt like sitting down and making some music, he did.
No pressure. No time blocking. No so-called “discipline.”
Of course, we can’t act like that all the time. Justin Vernon pulled that off because he’d spent years honing his craft. But everything has a season, and discipline isn’t mindless, rigid repetition. Discipline is setting an intention and then, over time, letting go as your life aligns itself accordingly.
Funny thing is, I now look forward to getting up early, doing yoga, making a green drink, and sitting with my journal. I guess I’ve lived in LA too long. But god knows I don’t do this everyday.
Because some days, the most disciplined thing to do is just to fuck off and do whatever you want and forget about discipline for a little while.
What kind of day is today?
-DR
Because remember, discipline has that funny other usage: to discipline someone is to give ‘em a time out, to wrap ‘em on the knuckles with a ruler. I don’t like that version of discipline at all.
It’s the same root as “disciple” – which also has some funny connotations that we’ve let get completely out of whack in the same cult-y ways. But, remember, a disciple should want to grow and learn…not just follow what their very charismatic leader is telling everyone to do.
Writing, singing, playing guitar, recording music, practicing, eventually making more internet content – that’s only like ¼ of my life if you count my other gig (tutoring high school students) as well as my time spent being a partner, a friend, learning french, reading books, and just generally taking care of and trying to enjoy myself and this existence. Plus, of course, the time spent sitting in existential dread. Can’t forget about that either! It’s part of the process.
French for “good winter.” Kinda like when we say “good morning” to each other as we walk past one another in the neighborhood.
A couple of thoughts came to my mind. One is related to human creativity. Few years ago I read a book, "The Burnout Society", written by Byung-Chul Han (highly recommended btw), and he shares the fact that our generation lives under so much pressure to being active and productive that even in our free time we are convinced that we should being active and time doing "nothing" is basically wasting time. However, doing "nothing" is absolutelly necessary in order to improve the creative process, since it allows our mind to work in peace and ideas come more freely. So, for me rigid "discipline" sounds like a misconception when we talk about creativity.
The other idea is more conected to the consistency. We can be consistent in your habits and activities, without being so rigid and so disciplined. As you said, sometimes it's important to set some schedule and time block, altough we also need to be gentle with ourselves and sometimes bring flexibility to our plans, in order to keep the balance.