Pain of Discipline or the Pain of Regret

I love adventuring, going to new places — or even tramping old favorite grounds. I’ve been cycling & camping in Mammoth, CA in July when it snowed!!! Cabining with my son at a Boy Scout camp in the Pacific Palisades, conferencing in Anaheim CA at VidCon with my Susie, Nikki, Dan, and Shayna.

Adventures are fun. But I’ve also developed a real taste for the joy of discipline and a routine conducive to creation: writing. For my schedule, this has to be around 5:00 AM — and I am not by preference a morning person.

In college I night-owled, drinking two pots of coffee, up all night writing, only stopping when summoned to bed by dawn’s chirping of the birds.

But life’s progression has flipped my schedule, now my sole source of solitude for writing is if I carve it out before dawn. The challenge is getting up when I used to go to bed.

When it’s cold, dark, and scary outside – leaving our cozy warm bed to face the chill darkness, the cold clothes on the floor (I’m ‘stylistically casual’), the tip toe reaching down the ominous dark stairs, the shadows of the hallways, the chill outdoors, fumbled keys for getting into my office, bright lights on – stretching, listening to audio books, loosening up, stretched and warm, thoughts start flying – sitting down to my MacBook Pro – fingers poised, heart beating… start flowing – I get lost in the thrill of a write, the chase of a thought, the capture of a dash.

It all seems so right when I’m writing. Away from it, I wonder, worry, and feel insecure – but in the midst of the act, it’s a joy!

It’s a joy that only comes through discipline.

And so too is it for you.

Jim Rohn said we have two options: The pain of discipline, or the pain of regret.

Writing is a joy. But when I snooze the alarm, roll back into bed and blow off my pre-dawn session, I regret it. And listen—you can’t just say ‘screw regret’, because regrets are harvested, they are the results of choices—often the result of neglect. Unfortunately, we earn many of our regrets.

The person who has no regrets has either brilliantly executed discipline on their defined set of ethics and objectives; or, they’re living an as-yet unexamined life.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”   Socrates

Wait. What about Frank Sinatra singing “Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again too few too mention”? Sorry, not buying it. Great singer, yes, but he was singing a song, not reciting his autobiography. In truth, Sinatra was often severely depressed; he couldn’t stand to be alone. He didn’t even like that song.
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Regret sucks. And it can last a long time. You can get over it, but if possible, why not dodge it instead? When you exercise the pain of discipline—anticipating, and then afterwards, savoring— the sweet afterglow of success, those will be some of your best days!

I love those days! You’ll love ‘em too!