Choose to Take the Journey

Discipline is hard to come by. Really hard. It is the virtue that separates the few who do from the many who talk.

It is what separates flat abs from love handles. Getting to work from languishing on the sidelines. Acts of creation from slow deterioration.

Failure is the default. You don’t have to do anything to get it. Do nothing and watch as it creeps up on you gradually, effortlessly, and mercilessly. Laziness is automatic. As is selfishness. And gluttony. No one has to work at being a fat, lazy bum. You just let yourself go and your work is already done.

Imagine you had to travel from Los Angeles to New York on foot. No matter how much you pumped yourself up, how hard you trained, or how fast you ran, you still wouldn’t get there by the day’s end. So it is with any long-term project, any compelling vision, any worthwhile dream. Most likely, you would walk for most of the day and eventually stop someplace to sleep for most of the night.

And each morning, upon awakening, you would have the choice to either continue your journey or to give up. This is the purpose of discipline: to keep you moving, consistently. You could even linger for a day or two, enjoying the novel sights and sounds that your present surroundings afford you, but do so from a place of intentional choice, not unintentional fear of the road ahead. The average man has seen a vision of his own magnificent dream, but it is the uncommon man who has the discipline to keep walking, day after day, until the day he finds himself… already living it.