The Best Word in a Man’s Life

Discipline involves pain. It’s not always comfortable or convenient. But pain is inevitable in life. And every man must pick the pain he’d rather have. You either pick the pain of DISCIPLINE. Or you pick the pain of REGRET.

There are no other options.

Consider the following:

 

• Discipline wakes a man at 6:30 a.m. to go for his 2 mile jog. It’s cold outside and dark, and he’d rather stay in bed. Sure, that’s painful.

or

• Regret lands him in the hospital at age 52 from a heart-attack.

 

• Discipline permits a man to let a stupid driver fly by him unimpeded on the freeway. Sure, it grates on a man’s ego. Hey—that louse needs to be taught a lesson. It takes restraint and a cool head to not floor it, swerve around that muttonhead, and flip him the bird.

or

• Regret lands both drivers in the morgue.

 

• Discipline installs filtering software on man’s computer. It’s inconvenient, sure, and might slow the computer. It might be embarrassing to explain why you want to safeguard your integrity like that.

or

• Regret sees a man’s self-respect disintegrate and his marriage fall apart.

 

Catch my drift? In this day and age of lighthearted masculinity and short-range living, it’s not popular anymore to advocate discipline. But you can’t avoid pain. You can only pick the one you want.

One pain is preemptive. The other operates in hindsight.

One pain moves a man forward. The other sets him back.

One is wise. The other is foolish.

Discipline: it’s the best word in a man’s life, far better than regret.

 

Question: What’s an example of a discipline that seems costly at the time, but in the end actually reaps big results?