Being Disciplined

“Disciplined” is the participle form of the verb to discipline, and can be used in two different ways. It can be used as an adjective - The disciplined child did not eat all of the cookies in the jar. Or it can be used with the verb “to be” to form a sentence in passive voice - After eating all of the cookies in the cookie jar, the child was disciplined by being forbidden sugar for the rest of the week. My point is that we can either choose to be “disciplined” (an adjective that describes our nature), or we can choose to “be disciplined” (a verb phrase that describes what will be done to us).  We can choose to watch ourselves, and our thoughts and our words and our actions and make disciplined choices that will lead to a happier, more peaceful, more pleasant and fulfilling life. Or we can choose to willfully shut our eyes and run into brick walls and smack our heads against tree branches and trip over stones in our path and be disciplined through hard and painful lessons. Choosing to impose discipline upon ourselves does not remove the brick walls or the low hanging branches or the stones from our path, but it does stop us from running into them blindly. Being disciplined can be inconvenient when we have to climb over walls or bend down to get beneath branches or step a lot higher than we like to get over stones in our way, but as annoying as these chores may be, they still are less annoying and less painful than pretending they are not there and smashing into them. Being disciplined does not remove the challenges from our lives, but it does make us better prepared to face and overcome them. Being disciplined is not restricting but freeing. Once we understand the parameters and the rules by which the world around us works, we can chart a course that will lead to the least long term pains and the most long term pleasures. Or we can flail about blindly and curse a cruel world that we are always beating ourselves against. Accepting Discipline as an adjective that helps define who we are is so much different than being forced to accept discipline as an action that is imposed upon us against our will.