When I asked you what I should write next, among other things, you responded,
“Finding contentment”
“Discipline” &
“Personal freedom”
Instead of picking one (like a sane person) I am going to take a shot at all three at once in under 1,000 words, and with a 1 hour time limit. Here we go…
“Discipline equals freedom.” A popular quote from former Navy SEAL commander and podcast guru, Jocko Willink. I’ve seen this quote on a number of T-shirts, embroidered into Jiu Jitsu kimonos, and on countless stickers slapped onto dented water bottles. Every time I’ve read those three words a cynical little voice deep down in me laughed. The equation seemed wrong to me but I wasn’t sure why. Until…
I had gone the way of discipline, waking at four-thirty every morning for years before I’d ever heard the name Jocko. I owned a popular gym in Denver, Colorado. I taught a class at five in the morning and then another at six. At eight I did my first workout of the day. At ten I studied physiology, anatomy, and kinesiology. I’d teach a midday class and after lunch I did my second workout of the day. I taught more classes in the evening then went home. I maintained a decent diet and slept well. I did this for years. And for years I was miserable. Discipline was the hammer I used to seal my own cell, the tool of discontent.
The business was doing well. I was the most fit I had ever been, competing in the CrossFit Games regionals two years in a row. I was two classes away from finishing my degree in physiology. All because of discipline. I was successful. I was suicidal.
What happened next is well documented in my third book. I sold everything minus a backpack and left the country in search of contentment. I searched for a way to feel free, to feel alive, or at least worthy of the gift of living. I rebuked discipline. I vowed to not set an alarm clock for at least a year. I ate whatever I felt like and drank enough rum to drown a pirate. Beholden to no one, I felt free.
I traveled through thirty six countries that year. A bird has never known such freedom. And then, on a dime, or perhaps I should say, on a peso, I stopped. I met a young woman in a dusty dive bar, in a not much of a town, a thousand miles south of the border in Mexico. There’s another book here which tells of what happened there in Mexico and the other ten countries that young woman and I drove through that first year. But that book isn’t out yet, so you’ll have to wait.
Eventually, we had a child. We settled in. Built a home and the cage slammed shut. I watched freedom fly on without me as I changed another diaper. It was around this time that I first heard of Jocko Willink and his philosophy on freedom. I laughed. I knew better. I knew the consequences of discipline. I knew the personal freedom of disorganized solo traveling. I struggled for several years after having experienced the false summit of solitude.
Though it was tempting, I could not, would not, leave this time. Even though I believed that all contentment required was unbound movement. Stillness, stagnation, was my prison and the pressure of its walls compressed and crushed me as I struggled against them. In that pressure I realized the only way to escape was to embrace the stillness.
For the next few years I woke before dawn and sat for an hour in perfect stillness. Breathing. I’d run away from myself, and when I could no longer run, there I was. So I sat, still and quiet, seeking freedom. The only true freedom is a mastery of oneself. But being free and being content are not the same thing. So I read. I was disciplined in my reading. I read 100 books, then another 100, and a 100 more after that. I had learned through meditation of the richness of the internal world, and to there I escaped. I found a new way to run away.
I was arguably more depressed than I was years before. Though discipline had sat me down every morning and, in a way, freed me from stillness, discipline could not achieve contentment.
In my running away I was forced to look at myself when I read this sentence in an essay by Joan Didion, “Character – the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life – is the source from which self-respect springs.”
Though I had plenty of discipline, I had never accepted responsibility for my own life. I applied discipline like a hammer, but lacked the nail of character. I was successful in business and sport, yet I lacked the foundational requirement for self-respect. The day I recognized that discipline can only be freeing if it is applied to the efforts of one’s character – the development of self-respect – was the day I achieved not just freedom but contentment.
Freedom is impossible without contentment, contentment is impossible without self-respect. Self-respect is born from accepting responsibility for your life. Discipline may sharpen character, if character is the mark. But without self-respect all discipline equates to is self-injury.
Self-respect is sleeping in when you need to. Self-respect is getting up to face the challenges of the day.
So, if you are feeling trapped, discontent in life, know this, self-respect equals freedom. And hear this, wherever you are, whoever you are, you are so worthy of that most crucial form of respect.
With much love and respect (and 43 words and 3 minutes to spare),
lj
As always, please comment and let me know what subject you’d like me to write about.
I have contemplated this very same question for some time. The non dualistic approach that you take, puts into words what I have struggled to explain to many other people. Contentment truly is the top of the mountain and there are many paths there. Grinding oneself into dust is decidedly an unhealthy endeavor that is only learned after the gears of life break down.
Thank you for your insights. This is very well done.
Thanks Leo.
This is the first thing I read today. I've read it three times so far. I've been a student of self improvement most of my adult life. There is a type of soul crushing that takes place when emulating the Jockos and Goggins of this world and I cannot deny they have helped my life they also fueled my self hate. It wasn't until I began seeing myself through my teenage daughter's eyes that I found a man worthy of respect. I cannot put to words what this piece of your writing means to me. Thank you Leo. Thank you.