Discipline defines the hero
Wisdom Wednesday #2
“Every action is a vote for the person you want to become.”
You could choose to change your life today—or at the very least aim yourself upward. You could find joy in the small sacrifices you make every day to reach your "potential", knowing you are becoming something more. In this way, sacrifice is a means of transformation, with the transformation being proportional to the sacrifice.
Once it is established that sacrifice is transformative, the next question is: "What are you transformed into?"
Sacrifice, or more concretely, discipline, is what creates the Hero. By discipling yourself , you are becoming the hero in your own story instead of the villain, whose actions lead to more resentment and rage.
The archetypal hero's action is to save something of great value by putting themselves in danger (potentially sacrificing themselves). You activate the hero archetype in yourself by willingly sacrificing what you know is of lesser value in exchange for what is more valuable.
In doing that, you give up a piece of yourself(a psychological piece) for an attempt to create unify(in yourself and the world).
You make the decision to give up the known world—your daily life—for a better potential unknown world. And maybe you fail; maybe it was too difficult for you at the moment. Nonetheless, you are transformed by your courage, because the ability to sacrifice is the definition of maturity. But maybe you succeed, and upon realizing this, you realize that who you are now is better than who you once were. In this way, the original decision wasn't a sacrifice - it was trading in two apples for four - and now the world is a new to you. You have evolved, you do not have the same fears and now have a better eye. This reminds me of the T.S. Eliot quote about adventure, "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
Adventure produces character and your character determines how you see the world. This is because who you are partially determines what you aim at and what you aim at determines what you see.
Now instead of attributing your life to who you are now, you decide to commit your life to who you are becoming —the hero's journey. You commit yourself to the voluntary confrontation of chaos when it manifests itself in your life(and in yourself).
If you can commit to the hero's journey, you'll find that as time progresses, you will become more of a hero. First, you will save yourself, and then you will have to learn to fight for your community. You will encounter malevolent forces, but you will not be deterred. In time, you will learn to efficiently stand up for the state. You will go from slaying lizards to slaying dragons, and the world will be a better place for it. But more importantly, on a personal level, you will have had an adventure, and your life will have meant something.
Choose to discipline yourself
In good faith
Kene Ezeaputa
About the Creator
Atlas Aristotle
Trying to do my best
Keep reading
More stories from Atlas Aristotle and writers in Motivation and other communities.
A year old isn't a year better
Every year I like to look back on the lessons I learned and compile them into an article. It encourages me to think more critically about the progress I've made and who I want to become. Although I'm not perfect, I hope you can take something from my experience.
By Atlas Aristotle 2 years ago in Motivation
It Only Took One Minute.......
It only took a minute. I was sitting at the computer in my office when the phone rang. I picked up the receiver and then laid it down my desk as I went to find the student who the call was for. Within seconds I was back at my desk, ready to resume typing, when I heard the student yelling obscenities at me for listening in to his call through the handset that was still lying on the desk. Sick and tired of the lies he was spewing, I was up running down the hall, ready to kill him. By the time I reached him, I had calmed enough not to hurt him, but as I turned back towards my room, I knew that I couldn’t go on like this any longer. The decision was clear. I had to leave.
By Gail Wylie3 days ago in Motivation
We Become What We Repeatedly Do
How a Habit is developed? Most of a person’s daily activities are their habits. A habit is usually a circle of cue action and reward. A cue is a cause behind a certain behavior, and it switches the brain to automatic mode, so makes a person repeat the routine. The cause is anything like some place or some time of the day, and emotional state, or a social circumstance. The more the action leads to a reward like a good feeling or relief the more it encourages a person to focus on the action but forget the trigger and the reward. For example, if you play video games most of the time you may notice that the trigger could be boredom and the reward could be entertainment, you can then change your action to something else, that will bring the same reward like watching TV, or using social media.
By Ha Le Saa day ago in Motivation
How the Harvest Mouse Came to Suisun Bay
A long, long time ago there was a family of harvest mice. Mice are common, but these were unique – born to those who had lived in the salty, marshy bay for many generations, these mice ate and drank from the sea as well as the land and rivers. For generations, there were only the southern families, scattered along the marshes of Corte Madera and in the San Francisco Bay (U.S. Fish & Wildlife, 2013). One family, however, would undergo strife and conflict before reaching a whole new world. What became of them after is another tale entirely – but this is how their story begins.
By Taylor Inman6 days ago in Fiction
Comments
There are no comments for this story
Be the first to respond and start the conversation.