“What I’ve learned from riding that wave of life [one without discipline] is that life without discipline and willpower [she uses them kind of interchangeably throughout the ep] for me does not look like that, slow living life, that tiktok shows. it does not look like laying in a bed of moss with my lover and having a picnic in the sun…. for me it looks like sleeping all day every weekend, scrolling tiktok for hours, daily, consistently eating whatever is quickest and there, not what I actually want or what would feel satisfying to eat. And I want to be clear, I’m not talking about not talking eating unhealthy vs eating unhealthy. I’m talking about during a night where i would love to make myself a a big elaborate beautiful dinner but just can’t motivate myself to do something like that. I can’t motivate myself to do anything that takes time. not socializing with new people because I don’t have the energy to put myself out there. these are examples of what a life without discipline and willpower looks like for me.

going down this road of rejecting discipline has made me realise that the impulse part of my brain is not concerned with me maximizing my joy. the impulsive part of your brain wants to do whatever thing is going to exert the least energy and keep it alive and keep it safe. And it doesn’t mean that side of our brains and ourselves sucks and we’re doing a disservice to ourselves if let it drive the bus sometimes. but I think it’s important to remember that your impulses aren’t always in your best interest. They don’t necessarily care about your long term trajectory, they don’t care if we would feel better if we put down our phone and went for a walk, or fold your laundry or cleaned our room or called our friend. Because continuing to scroll tiktok or watch netflix, or whatever the thing is will exert less energy and keep us alive.

And I think that honoring our impulses, like everything else in the world, is healthy and good in moderation. So sometimes you do just need to have a day where you don’t get up from the couch and just watching netflix all day. but in a time where many of us are rejecting discipline and almost forgetting or losing the desire to apply discipline and willpower to anything, not just things that are not in our best interest to apply it to like overworking and restricting food. I think it is easy to end up in a place where you are feeding your impulses almost all the time and that picture, generally, doesn’t look good for you. At least for me, it doesn’t look good for me. I do not wan’t to be the person that I would be without discipline.

So maybe you’re wondering, what would it look like to apply discipline to my joy. and I think that a very personal question that only you can answer, but for me, it looks like being more intentional and reliable in the context of my relationships. it looks like limiting screen time, it looks like being productive when I’m working my job, so that I am only in front of my computer for the hours that I need to be. It looks like prioritizing movement because I know that makes me feel my best. it looks like spending time and being regimented with my passions. it looks like not letting myself sleeping all day as an avoidant behaviour and only sleeping in if i’m tired and need sleep. it looks like sticking to a schedule of volunteering for causes that I am passionate about. it looks like spending the time and effort to be a good partner and friend and family member. it looks like keeping a dedicated focus on my spiritual journey and my connection with god.

These are just some of my examples and I don’t at all mean to imply that I’m doing these things perfectly. These are just sort of the areas in my life where I’m trying to apply discipline to the best of my ability.

and this is a little caveat that maybe I should have said at the beginning of this, but i talked about this a little bit on tiktok and somebody reframed it as rather than discipline thinking about it as devotion.

[…]

and maybe you’re hearing all this and you’re thinking well, Victoria, this all sounds great.

But what if I have a job or other circumstances in my life where I'm using up, all my discipline I'm

hustling and I don't have any way out of that, I don't have any way to free up discipline bandwidth to like make an elaborate dinner or whatever. you quit your intense job, Victoria. I Can't do that. And it's a really good point. It's a really good point.

I think that one of the blind spots of this soft living mindset is that most of us still do have to

work and I still do have to work. I still have a corporate law job. I still have to apply discipline in the context of my job and so maybe a

more productive conversation is, how can I effectively place boundaries around application of my discipline and willpower at work. So that I do have some bandwidth to apply discipline elsewhere in my life. And if you are in a job or another circumstance, where you are, continuously burnt out, and you're either not willing or not able to leave that circumstance, then I think it's important to recognize that prioritizing discipline elsewhere in your life is going to be really hard and this is not me telling you to quit your job, because I know it's almost never that simple, but I will say it might be a good idea to spend some time re-evaluating whether the extra energy and discipline and time you're pouring into that area of your life above and beyond the amounts that you need to in order to meet expectations are being met with additional benefits and maybe the answer to that question is Yes.

So for example, if you're a college student listening to this and you're busting your ass to make Straight A's and you could expand less time and energy and discipline and willpower, but you would make worse grades and that would not be worth it to you then. Maybe you just need to make peace with how you're spending your time and what you're getting out of it and know that this is not going to be the era in your life where you're making elaborate dinners frequently or whatever it is. And in that case maybe the best bet is to prioritize spending your limited down time in ways that feel genuinely restful and Charging to you.

In other words, when you are able to catch a little break trying not to just do that, impulsive path. In other words, when you are able to catch a little break trying not to just do that, impulsive path of least resistance behavior and instead do whatever it is, that is genuinely going to make you feel good, which sometimes will be that path of least, resistance Behavior, but not all the time.”

— Soul Gum

"Discipline Is Destiny"

Living in Expectation of the Unexpected Gift