The road less traveled (I) - Discipline

Life is basically a series a problems. Therefore, life is difficult because it is painful to go through the process of confronting and solving problems in life. Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life's problems. There are four techniques associated to discipline, namely, delaying of gratification, acceptance of responsibility, dedication to truth, and balancing. (summary from The road less traveled, section I by Scott Peck)

I suspect my persistent problem in life is very much due to lacking of discipline. I don't think I am an ill-discipline person, but I think my current level of discipline is far from able to uproot my problems. I am a 5 mins person. My discipline can only work very well for the first 5 mins. Just like the current situation, I think I disciplined myself well in managing the healing process since my break off with my ex. But now, I am feeling very much exhausted and getting relax each day. Consequently, I see my problem is heading out of track each day.

Out of the four techniques associated to discipline, I manage half quite well and the other half is still very much in the process of improving.

I was quite a prolific reader during my primary and secondary school time. A large amount of books I read were about individual struggling much through life to obtain ultimate happiness, eg: “汪洋中的一条船”，“孤儿历险记”，“苦儿流浪记”, etc. I think the theme was somehow the main morale of that era. While I was engrossing with all the stories, I developed subconsciously in me that life had to run on a tough ground first before happiness would follow. Therefore, I practice naturally delaying of gratification. But I am not too sure if I am over doing it that I forbid gratification entering my life.

I am basically a neurotic. When I am in conflict with the world, I always automatically assume that I am at fault. When things got clear with my ex, I didn't see it that it was his fault entirely. Most of the time, I actually attributed the fault to myself as I didn't have sufficient love to help him to grow. I always assume responsibility on problems in my life. I think this is also because I am a buddhist. Buddhism teaches strongly that one has to be responsible to solve own problem.

The two aspects I am doing quite badly are dedication to truth and balancing. I am not too sure if it is because the previous two factors that shield me from properly executing these two techniques. I always assume too much fault on my side that I hardly want to attribute the wrong to the other party in conflict. I maybe aware of the truth but my strong belief that I am at fault and should shoulder the responsibility to handle the situation always muddle the truth.

This was most obvious when I was handling my break off with my ex. I assumed that it was mostly my fault that I didn't help him much in our two years together. On top of that, I was the one who initiated the break off, so I had to ensure that he could manage and went through the process smoothly and easily. I masked off all my feeling initially to help him through, at the same time, I muddled lots of reality that resulted in lots of confusion in myself later. I am still very much in the process of sorting thing out myself I think.

I guess this also got to do with technique on balancing. Scott indicated in his book that a free person must assume total responsibility for his own problem, but in doing so must also possess the capacity to reject responsibility that is not truly his. I think I fail in this completely. I am never good in balancing, both physically and mentally. I am not too sure if the two have connection. I had ever tried very hard to improve my capability in balancing physically in hope that this would indirectly help balancing mentally. I tried standing on one leg, learning ice-skating, etc. Somehow, this is still the weakest spot of me in life.