The Delight of Discipline

Say what you will about the simple pleasures in life. For my money, or lack thereof, few pleasures equal a quiet morning, a good coffee and a bit of reading. Today’s installment consists of a simple observation from the Greek philosopher Epictetus, who reaches out to us across a span of nearly 1,900 years to say, “Just as one person delights in improving his farm and another his horse, so I delight in attending to my own improvement day by day.”

The particularly bracing part is the wisdom packed into such a short observation, especially the word delight. Not obligation, mind you. Not sacrifice. Not the grim satisfaction of enduring something unpleasant in anticipation of a reward. Delight.

You see, we tend to regard discipline as the price of admission to something else. We endure early mornings, tedious repetitions, frustration, and failure because we believe something worthwhile awaits us at the end. So we trudge to work, and when someone asks, “How are you?” we answer, “I’m here.”

Perhaps we've misunderstood the reward. What if discipline itself, and the improvement it produces, is actually one of life's greatest pleasures?

Before you throw your own hot coffee in my direction, stay with me a moment, because I learned something about this many years ago, under circumstances considerably less philosophical than sitting in a comfortable study with a cup of freshly ground coffee.

During my formative years in the military, I served in a capacity that occasionally involved carrying one's own body weight in weapons, ammunition, and gear through terrain apparently selected by someone with a personal grudge against the human musculoskeletal system.

On one particularly memorable Louisiana summer day, we were in the middle of an exercise that required our special response team to repeatedly clear a building while wearing full battle rattle, chemical warfare suits, and gas masks.

We cleared the building. Withdrew. Cleared it again. Withdrew again. Then advanced to clear the thing yet again. Either the building kept falling back into enemy hands whenever we turned our backs, or the battle staff was feeling gleefully sadistic.

The heat was oppressive. At one point, I stumbled into a ditch and landed face-first in the mud. A buddy helped me up, and I continued, only to discover that I was about to vomit into my gas mask. Removing it meant being declared a casualty, which meant everyone else having to clear the wretched building yet again.

So I swallowed hard. Very hard. And kept going. I was convinced I'd reached the absolute limit of my endurance. Evidently, I hadn't.

Our physical limits are real, but our perception of those limits is sometimes less reliable than we imagine. We discover, if we dig deep enough, capabilities we never suspected.

I got a refresher course in endurance years later when my impetuosity torqued off the brass on one of my several deployments to the Middle East. I found myself assigned to a demanding hard-labor detail, an assignment I approached with less than an ideal level of enthusiasm.

But something unexpected happened. As the days passed, the physical exertion that initially almost dropped me became oddly satisfying. My strength and endurance improved. Tasks that initially seemed punishing became manageable. I began taking genuine pleasure in the work itself and the improvements I could see taking place. I had forgotten how an honest day's labor can cleanse the soul.

The supervising NCO and I, initially on less than cordial terms, eventually became friends. On my final day, he raised his water bottle in a toast, along with others on the work detail, saying that I had proved tougher than most folks ever thought of being.

What began as punishment had become an unexpected source of satisfaction and personal growth. The circumstances hadn't necessarily improved. I had.

We live in a world that celebrates achievement by frequently confusing achievement with celebrity. My favorite rock band, KISS, has long encouraged aspiring musicians to pick up a guitar, endure the sweat, tears, and blistered fingers, and pursue the dream of becoming a rock star.

Fair enough. There's nothing wrong with dreaming of playing Madison Square Garden. Their songs about grit and perseverance are inspirational. But for every musician who headlines a stadium, there are thousands of extraordinarily talented people who never perform before more than a handful of listeners.

Have they failed?

Consider the guitarist who spends decades mastering his instrument, playing small clubs and teaching students while never receiving widespread recognition. He may nevertheless experience profound satisfaction in developing his abilities, discovering musical possibilities, and communicating something beautiful through his instrument.

His pleasure doesn't require the approval of a record company or the adulation of screaming fans. The music itself is sufficient. He may have begun hoping to become the next Ace Frehley or Eddie Van Halen, only to discover that the more interesting undertaking was becoming truly himself.

We may begin by pursuing an accomplishment or station in life, only to discover that improvement changes not merely what we can do, but what we value. The journey becomes its own destination.

At this point, we beckon Marcus Aurelius to the courtesy phone. As Roman emperor in the second century, he wielded authority over much of the known world. Yet his private writings, collected in Meditations, reveal a man engaged in a continuous struggle to govern himself.

He reminded himself to rise from bed and attend to his duties, to anticipate difficult people without surrendering his character, and to approach his responsibilities with seriousness, justice, and restraint.

There is something almost comical about the contrast between the most powerful man in the Roman world struggling to master his impulses and some modern managers who can't even master the rather modest challenge of organizing a staff meeting.

But the principle is serious. Authority over others does not confer mastery over oneself.

What makes Marcus Aurelius particularly interesting is that he never regarded his position or accomplishments as evidence that the work of self-improvement was finished. His private reflections reveal a man who continued to examine his conduct, question his impulses, and remind himself of the person he aspired to become. For all his worldly authority, he remained a student of his own character.

Marcus Aurelius, whatever his imperfections, recognized that self-government is never finished. Neither is ours.

Which brings me to Johann Sebastian Bach and the joy of coffee.

A man of extraordinary discipline, Bach possessed a mastery of counterpoint that represents one of the great intellectual and artistic achievements of Western civilization. He composed, taught, rehearsed, directed musicians, and produced works of mind-boggling complexity and beauty.

And yet he was exceedingly capable of enjoying himself.

During his years in Leipzig, he frequented Café Zimmermann, where he directed performances by the Collegium Musicum and indulged his enthusiasm for coffee.

In the 1730s, he composed his delightful Coffee Cantata, a musical comedy about a young woman whose devotion to the beverage drives her father to distraction. In fact, her father eventually threatens to deprive her of fashionable clothes, social outings, and ultimately marriage unless she abandons her coffee habit.

She appears to surrender but contrives to preserve her beloved coffee through a condition attached to her marriage. One suspects that Bach, who reportedly enjoyed copious amounts of coffee daily, enjoyed the joke as well.

Here was the composer of some of the most profound sacred music ever written, amusing himself and his audience with a musical celebration of caffeine and domestic rebellion.

There is no contradiction, because the discipline that enabled Bach to create works of extraordinary complexity also gave him the freedom to be playful, inventive, and delightfully irreverent. Mastery does not extinguish pleasure. It enlarges our capacity for it.

Consider anyone learning a musical instrument. Initially, the fingers are uncooperative, the notes refuse to arrange themselves into music, and the entire enterprise seems designed to demonstrate the inadequacies of the human nervous system.

But through practice, something changes. What once required exhausting concentration becomes natural. The musician hears possibilities that previously escaped him. Technique gradually gives way to expression.

The difficult becomes possible. The possible becomes easy. The easy becomes habit. And the habit becomes beautiful. Discipline has become a form of freedom.

I've noticed something similar in intellectual pursuits.

Researching an unfamiliar subject, wrestling with a difficult argument, or arranging seemingly unrelated ideas into a coherent piece of writing can be demanding work.

But there are moments when an unexpected connection reveals itself, when an obscure concept suddenly becomes clear, or when a sentence finally captures precisely what one has been trying to convey.

Such moments are exhilarating, and they're made possible by the less glamorous work that preceded them: reading, research, false starts, revisions, and the willingness to acknowledge that one's initial understanding may have been entirely wrong.

The satisfaction comes both from acquiring mastery and discovering a greater capacity for mastery than previously imagined. Each small victory contributes to the larger undertaking.

Of course, discipline doesn't guarantee worldly success. Fortune, opportunity, circumstances, and the actions of others remain stubbornly beyond our control. Which is precisely why the Stoic perspective matters.

If our satisfaction depends entirely upon external rewards, we've surrendered a considerable portion of our happiness to forces we cannot command. But if we learn to appreciate the process of improving our abilities and character, we acquire a source of satisfaction that cannot easily be taken from us.

This applies to the gardener cultivating a difficult patch of earth, the craftsman refining his technique, the older student discovering an unexpected aptitude, or the parent struggling to become wiser and more patient.

None needs to become famous. None needs to impress posterity. The improvement itself can be its own reward.

Epictetus understood that nearly two thousand years ago.

He didn't say he delighted in achieving perfection. He delighted in attending to his improvement, day by day. Perfection is an elusive and, at times, imaginary destination. Improvement is a lifelong mission.

We begin by trying to accomplish something. Along the way, we discover what we're capable of accomplishing. And somewhere in that process, if we're sufficiently attentive, we discover that the effort itself has become a source of genuine pleasure.

The journey is not merely the destination.

The journey transforms the traveler.

And therein lies considerable delight.