Difficulties are fundamental to our existence. No matter how well you may navigate life, you will encounter hardships. The question then becomes, how will you handle these difficulties?
Life has problems, and if we deal with them poorly or in a haphazard way, it just gets worse. If we deal with them in a disciplined manner (with planned self-control), we have a basis for creatively using the problems as an avenue for future success, or if nothing else, minimizing their impact on our lives.
In his 1978 book “The Road Less Traveled” (Touchstone, New York NY), Dr. Scott Peck identified four disciplines we need to have in order to successfully engage and navigate through the difficulties we will encounter along life’s journey. The disciplines described below are similar to what Peck wrote:
Work First, Play Later
I’m Responsibility
Commitment to Truth
Balance
Work First, Play Later. While some use the expression “delayed gratification” to describe this discipline, we choose “work first, play later”. These words work well with children to teach them this discipline, and it is pretty straightforward and easy to remember. The tough thing about this one is that if you don’t learn it early, it gets pretty tough to learn it later in life. As adults, this discipline has a slightly different look. Often it appears as not dealing with a problem you know is there. Such instances are common in business.
I’m Responsibility. Sometimes it is hard to know what you are or are not responsible for. With children, the problem is usually a child not stepping up to accept responsibility for something they did. Who left out the milk? Not me. As adults, we find there are some people who accept too much responsibility, about things they have no control over and still some who do not accept enough. As you travel down the path toward your dream, connected to God, and as you encounter difficulties, you are going to need to know when to take responsibility. The adage “let go, let God” is a great one. But how much do you let go? You can’t let completely go and just lie in the bed in the morning and wait for something great to happen. You have to get out of bed, face the world and do your part to make the dream happen. How much responsibility do you share? This is where discipline comes in. You are going to have to take some responsibility, but not too much, of reaching your dream.
Commitment to Truth. We have to want to see the world as it truly is, and this is a discipline everyone doesn’t have. How many people want to live in their own world, believe what they have always believed, and not be challenged or even consider changing? As long as they are in that comfort zone of knowing what they believe, they can avoid pain. But as we discussed before, this is not a healthy approach to dealing with life’s difficulties and pains. So a commitment to truth means you are prepared to analyze your view of life, or anything for that matter, and you are open to changing how you look at things.
Balance. The last self-discipline we will discuss is balance. Here we are talking about knowing when to apply the right disciplines. There will be times you will face conflicting situations where one discipline might be in direct opposition to another. You may have to weigh the situation carefully in order to determine which direction to move and which discipline to apply. Perhaps I have a project I must get completed today and yet my son wants me to help him with his math homework. Or maybe he just wants to spend time with me. In a very real way, my spending time with him at that very moment is one of the most important things I can do, and I realize that I am responsible for making that Connection with him. And so I have competing disciplines. Naturally, balance has to come in to play as I consider in which area to sacrifice, or give up, something.
Discipline