Discipline

Monday morning starts the new week and as every week I have great plans for starting over, whether it be diet, exercise, mental regulation, housekeeping. It really doesn’t matter other than a fresh start on something. This week I thought I would start the blog along a line of theory thinking and what better way to start than working on discipline.

A man without self-restraint is a like a barrel without hoops, and tumbles to pieces.

Henry Ward Beecher

I think we are living in a society today that has little self-restraint and one of the prime examples is the fact that we actually have to have a law to keep people from texting while driving. One would think that common sense ought to tell a person not to risk their life as well as the lives of others but apparently not.

A more burdensome proof of self discipline is the spiralling debt people get in to. The advent of credit cards has made it so easy for people to buy whatever they fancy without regard for the fact that they have no money to buy their desires. I was fortunate enough to be raised by European immigrants who still maintained their rigid and frugal mentality and thus had a horror of debt. We were in Canada for 10 years before my mother eventually got a dryer (after her sixth child was born). Even then she still had the old fashioned wringer washing machine until we moved to Winnipeg when she got a more modern one. My father drove his vehicle until it finally gave up the ghost, and the car had not been new to begin with. That’s what he could afford. My parents didn’t just sit down with us one day and lecture us about the evils of credit. Rather it would beginning at the dinner table as part of the daily anecdotes my father would come home with from his job. He would tell a story about John Smith’s wedding costing so many thousands of dollars which had to come from a bank loan. Then it would progress to his purchasing his new appliances on the Eaton’s credit card. And now Mr. Smith couldn’t afford all the payments. From there it would progress to the wisdom of self denial until one was actually able to buy “cash on the barrel head”.

One ought to exert self restraint more often than we do today though the examples set before us in these modern times are scanty. Just cast your mind over the celebrity list, I shudder as I do so; let’s see, Tiger Woods, Bill Clinton, Mel Gibson, Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton. Alright those are obvious bad choices. Let’s try again. Jessica Lange, Betty Ford, Elizabeth Taylor. These were women who made dubious choices but somehow managed to rise above it and go on to nobler things. I am casting about for someone who exemplifies self restraint in today’s celebrity world and I am having a hard time with true personification. Mother Teresa was a few years ago. Paul Newman?

You see what I mean? It’s hard to come up with someone current.

Ah, how about Richard Simmons? He’s a little over the top but he does keep his weight trim.