Discipline's Limitations | Artful Balance

Practicing self-discipline does not mean I have forever extinguished my fast-changing moods, anxieties, heartache, or my own vices, like arrogance.

There will be times when I need to pause working on my long-term goals and neglect my daily disiciplines to address the present moment: to check my mental health, to increase my self-awareness, to hunt down the answers to my greater "why's?".

Original why's can get outgrown; it is worth dropping everything to follow them down a rabbit hole.

Practicing self-discipline will not make me impervious to sudden-onset exhaustion or burn-out.

There is a point of diminishing returns in discipline as in everything. If carrying on the current way no longer breeds inspiration, ideas, motivation, and a sense of growthward motion, stepping away to recharge and restructure may be in order.

The discipline of production needs to be tied with the discipline of rest.

Practicing self-discipline does not automatically make me an independent, critical thinker.

Without checking and balancing my assumptions and the voices I'm listening to along the way, my habits of solitude and deliberate practice may more be the by-product of someone else's conceptions than my own.

I love discipline and advocate for it, but discipline is not the key to all forms of success.

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Artful Balance © 2019

These are my personal writings curated from material produced during my structured daily writing times as well as spontaneous thoughts I manage to record. Through organizing and uploading them i hope to learn about who I am as a voice and writer and find ways to improve my writing skills. Though I feel drawn to more cerebral topics, I would like my writing to be an engaging emotional journey none the less.

Someday I hope I figure out a way to assemble my short works into something more coherent and with a more obvious purpose. But right now, these tidbits are the best I can do.