October 2007

2007-10-19 Friday

The pain of self-discipline.

I'm still learning a lot about practicing self-discipline.  Main thought?  It's not fun.  Why?  It doesn't feel pleasurable.  When I'm hungry, I want to satisfy that hunger, make that hollow feeling go away, which is easy to accomplish, all I have to do is put food in my mouth.  But I know it's not a good idea to satisfy my hunger unthinkingly - I end up eating too much and/or consuming junk.  The healthy thing to do is to plan out menus in advance, shop for it, cook, and only eat at specified times.  This often means enduring hunger and it's not pleasant.  It feels much better in the short term to eat what tastes good whenever I want.  Often no harm is observed right away.  I "get away" with slacking off.  But over time it adds up.  A pound here, a pound there, and it's far more difficult to take off weight than to gain.

With romantic relationships it can also be difficult to practice self-discipline.  Especially in the initial stages of attraction it's easy to give into our emotional and physical hunger for the other person.  We want to call the other person all the time, see the other person, and be intimate both physically and emotionally with that person.  However, no matter how this obsession is glorified in arts and literature, acting on obsession is neither healthy nor rewarding.  The yearning itself - like hunger - is natural.  Whether we've just fallen in love or just broke up, the emotional neediness can be as agonizing as physical pain.  However, it never works to act on the urge to smother the other person or to jump into intimacy inappropriately.  Often one can "get away" with it in the short run, but then one ends up either nurturing an unhealthy relationship or pushing the other person away.

A third parallel for me is practicing control with spending.  The urge to spend - whether my budget and practical needs calls for the spending or not - is often strong.  Once again, small, unwise choices add up over time to damage my credit and bank account.  An unplanned ice cream here, a spur-of-the-moment "heat-to-heart" phone call to the man of the moment there, a trip to a half-yearly sale somewhere else, and before I know it, I am obese, heart-broken, and broke, though hopefully not all three at the same time.

Sadly, I was not being facetious or ironic.  I have been obese (according to the admittedly much-flawed BMI), heart-broken, and in debt, each condition more than once.  I am in no way putting down these conditions in and of themselves.  For many people the conditions are either not through their personal choice or not a big deal.  However, for me I've only ever been obese, heartbroken, and broke through my own weak behavior.  When I practice self-discipline with diet and exercise, my weight fluctuates but always within reason and never more than a dress size.  When I practice self-discipline with dating, I still can't prevent men I want from not finding me "the one," but at least I never have to deal with shame and rage involving "why isn't he into me?"  When things don't work out, I naturally feel sad and disappointed but I always have my dignity intact and I know the man hasn't hurt me unnecessarily because I haven't given him the chance to do so.  When I practice self-discipline with my wallet, there are still occasions where car troubles out of the blue wipe out my emergency fund, but at least I would not be devastated wondering where next month's rent is coming from.

It's still tempting sometimes (okay, make that all the time) to give into an internal hollowness the easy and unhealthy way, but I hope I have learned the lessons well enough that I never get into serious trouble again.