When I think of discipline, Basic Training comes to mind. So does Jocko (who I know, like, and respect). Everything is regimented, standards are clear and inspected often, and options are non-existent. Simply: execute or else.
If pictures could talk, you’d hear Drill Sergeant Hester barking “Squat!” so the 6'4" soldiers matched his height.
But 20+ years later, I still hate shaving with a razor, so I never do. It’s a weakness I blame on my past. When you have camo on your face and it’s 35 degrees out, and the water in your metal canteen cup is freezing, and your razor goes about half an inch before getting all gunked up and you have to keep banging the razor in the canteen cup to try to get the camo off of it (but don’t be too loud!) and keep shaving or else the Cadre will tell you to get in the cold ass lake and finish the job right… I’m simply not committed to that kind of discipline now.
My attempt at a stache in Nasiriyah circa 2006.
To make matters worse, I don’t even make my bed. Not ever. And to make matters even worse, this total lack of discipline in my life doesn’t even bother me one bit. What the hell has happened to me?
The point is not that discipline is bad, it’s that it evolves with priorities.
Emily and I are in the throes of everything. Mornings are a shotgun blast of getting kids (and ourselves) and an older Monster out the door. The days evaporate. Every night, without fail, our kids need dinner, needy as they are. Homework gets done. Stories get read. Alarms get set. We show up to work. We show up at home. We do it again the next day.
There’s no Cadre inspecting it. But there is a standard.
Discipline used to mean shaved faces and sheets so tight a quarter would bounce on them. Now it means patience when I’m tired. Staying present when it would be easier to scroll. Providing and showing how to cook an egg for themselves. Loving when it would be easier to check out
Proof of our first sit down dinner as a family of five (it took a while to get there!)
That kind of discipline doesn’t look cool on Instagram. No one writes books about making dinner for the 4,000th night in a row, except maybe the Queen of Soul herself, Aretha Franklin, who once admitted that her biggest challenge was figuring out what to cook for dinner every night. Even legends wrestle with the ordinary.
And maybe that’s the point. Real discipline isn’t always forged in freezing water or barked out by a Cadre. It’s doing the small things well, over and over. It’s setting a standard for your family that no one inspects but everyone feels.
I may never love shaving with a razor. I may never make my bed. But every day, we execute where it counts. And these days, that’s the discipline that matters.
— jason
