Who has heard of that saying?
I have and I have certainly experienced what it means.
Granted, I am one stubborn dude in many ways that I'd rather not get into.
I don't look at discipline as some force of evil or the harbinger of failure. There's different kinds of discipline in my book, the only kind that should be feared is that from people who have no interest in you maturing through the process. The only reason why I think those kind of people should be feared is because they get into a position of authority and make sure that anything you can be chastised for you suffer the full extent of their wrath in a unfair and cruel sense.
At that point, I wouldn't even call it punishment.. I'd call it torture.
We all have experienced at least one person who is on a power trip, seems to harbor some deep rooted hatred, and listens to your apologies as much as nails scratching across a chalk board. In fact, it would almost seem that our existence to this particular person is malicious to their own existence.
However, the street goes both ways.
We've also dealt with that person who is so unbelievably stubborn that we wonder how they were even pushed out of the womb without the doctors calling in the Fire brigade with the "jaws of life".
These people seem to revel in discipline, so it would seem, because you can tell them what they should and shouldn't do and it's like every word is perceived but it's like trying to get water to soak into a rock. Though it isn't as bad when you're dealing with a person who doesn't groan over every mistake they could have prevented had they took the time to be a sponge instead of a rock.
I myself am the latter, I am stubborn and sometimes I am very receptive to advice.. However, I do not gripe about my losses often. I am very resolved with them in most cases, usually I'm only troubled by that which I have no control over.
Plenty of times in life I have found out the folly of my ways the hard way. I have learned a lot from being able to pick back up and continue in life, with new understanding of why my situation had gone bad. Sometimes more than others, I learned the folly of other people's ways regardless of if or how it affected me personally.
And what else would it matter if I didn't learn things consciously? Most of what we experience is inevitably stored in our subconscious for the constant beat down of our emotions throughout life. It's just that few people in this world learn to stop taking the abuse of their subconscious and even fewer people learn how to sort through what's in it and literally reprogram it to suit their needs.
I can say I am part of those few.. That is, when I'm not willingly evading what is stored up in my subconscious because I'm pretty much giving up on the fight against myself to better myself.
Life has an interesting way with teaching lessons.
I think it is important to take it seriously as much as possible.. Mostly because we don't know what the reason is for going through this process of maturing in every aspect of our existence. Personally, I think there is a design behind it all and it isn't going to stop with death. That's my opinion based on my intuition and it is primarily formed through my experiences and observations of this World and the Universe as a whole; where anyone disagrees is a matter of subjectivity unless you can explain why every living thing is subject to a process of maturity and the law of entropy, simultaneously defying and being defied by the other.
Finally.. There's this little problem I see in the world that is plaguing modern society, and humanity yet again. It isn't the first time the plateau is reached in terms of a society becoming decadent because of the problem, however the problem manifests in various ways and only seems to grow in variance as humanity grows in sophistication in the world.
I am referring to the pursuit of happiness.
Quite frankly I believe that happiness is important to a degree. Total happiness is a farce if you talk about it outside of a state of being that's developed by conscious choice despite circumstances. When people say, "do whatever makes you happy" they set individuals up to perceive happiness as a way of life regardless of the method to get to the means.. I am filled with discontent at that kind of thinking because of what I see people do to obtain that state of being that can be done in the mind alone. Especially since so many people destroy their bodies, minds, and emotions in their frivolous pursuit of an external object to incite an internally occurring phenomenon; as I said, it is something that is of choice and can exist purely as just a choice.
So what do you tell someone that their pursuit for happiness made their external actions reap the harvest of Pain inevitably? Shall you say that their pain is their happiness? Maybe if they are masochistic.. Then again, even people like that I look further into the past so see if they were conditioned to think in such a manner or if they were truly born masochistic.
Regardless, my questions mean nothing in light of the average person and the point I'm making about discipline.
Life is not a place of constant happiness that's determined by how many rainbows, singing birds or sugary treats surrounding us. It is not a constant upheaval of good things either. Life is a myriad of things, a diverse cornucopia of good and bad and neutral. Whatever the original design of the Universe was, is still relevant now. Whatever has been added that shouldn't be, by whatever source with the authority to do so, is irrelevant when an individual has to decide how they will make a difference in anything.
All that matters is that each individual be given the chance to change. I would say that every individual should be disciplined.. However, there's no need if nothing needs to be changed. So let us focus more on the idea that we humans should put our energy into changing ourselves instead of trying to change everything else around us.
True change comes from within.
Fight it and you'll find your hard head led to a tenderized behind.
