When you think of the word "discipline," what comes to mind? For many it is an overdemanding teacher or a controlling parent. Try to set that notion of discipline aside, and think of the discipline an athlete freely chooses to bring the best out of himself or herself. Nobody can give you discipline, or make you disciplined. Discipline is a gift we give ourselves.Every aspect of the human person thrives on discipline, and relationships are no different. Discipline is the price life demands for happiness. Again, I am not speaking about pleasure, I am talking about lasting happiness in a changing world. You cannot be happy for any sustained period of time without discipline.Discipline is the road that leads to fullness of life.Consider the four aspects of the human person, physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. When we eat well, exercise often, and sleep regularly, we feel more fully alive physically. When we love, when we give priority to the significant relationships of our lives, when we give of ourselves to help others in their journey, we feel more fully alive emotionally. When we read good books that expand our vision or ourselves and our vision of the world, we feel more fully alive intellectually. When we enter into the classroom of silence and come before God in prayer, openly and honestly, we experience life more fully spiritually.Each of these life-giving endeavors requires discipline. To eat well requires discipline. To exercise regularly requires discipline. To think of other people's needs before our own wants requires discipline. We do not happen accidentally upon the activities that help us to become the-best-version-of-ourselves. We must choose them, and that choosing requires discipline.Are you thriving? Or are you just surviving?When are we most fully alive? When we embrace a life of discipline. The human person thrives on discipline.Discipline awakens us from the hedonistic stupor of modernpopular culture and refines every aspect of the human person. Discipline doesn't enslave or stifle us; rather, it sets us free to soar tounimagined heights. Discipline sharpens the human senses, allowing us to savor the subtler tastes of life's experiences. Whether thoseexperiences are physical, emotional, intellectual, or spiritual, discipline elevates them to their ultimate expression. Discipline heightens every human experience and increases every human, ability.The challenge of our essential purpose (to become the-best-version-of-ourselves) invites us to embrace this life-giving discipline. 'Is discipline, then, to be considered the core of the human experience? No. The life of discipline is proposed not for its own sake, but, rather, as the key to making us free. Discipline is the key to freedom. It is e&sy to give in to the allure of the momentary pleasures tha,t this world so readily offers, but all great men and woman know the value of delayed gratification. The heroes, leaders, legends, champions, and saints who fill the history books knew how to embrace discipline.One of the great challenges of the art of living is to learn to discipline ourselves, but at this moment in history, gratification seems to be the master of most people's hearts, minds, bodies, and souls. We find ourselves enslaved and imprisoned by a thousand different whims, cravings, addictions, and attachments. We have subscribed to the adolescent notion that freedom is the ability to do whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want, without interference from any authority. Could the insanity of our modern philosophy be any more apparent?Freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want. Freedom is the strength of character to do what is good, true, noble, andproducts. The only diet most of us need is a little bit of discipline. But we don't want discipline. We want someone to get on the television and tell us we can be happy and healthy without discipline, and we will pay any amount of money for it. We want someone to get on the television and tell us if we take this little pill twice a day we can eat whatever we want, whenever we want, and as much as we want, and still look like supermodels. It is another of the great myths of our modern popular culture, the idea that we can be happy without discipline. It's a lie, it's a myth, it's an illusion, and somewhere deep inside we know that.Every step toward the-best-version-of-ourselves requires discipline.We need a diet of the body, a disciplined way of eating that helps fuel the body and brings it toward maximum performance. But we also need a diet of the mind, a diet of the heart, and a diet of the soul. Only then are we ready for a serious relationship. With your self in hand, you can choose to freely and completely give yourself to another person in the mystery of love.If you want to measure the effectiveness of your relationship, measure the discipline in it. If your relationship is filled with and driven by whims, cravings, fancies, and constant lusting after pleasure, you don't have love. These things don't help us become the-best-version-of-ourselves, and if we truly loved another person, we would never do or encourage anything that would prevent that person from becoming trie-best-version-of-himself or herself.To love, we must be free, and yet too often we are slaves. Love is a promise, but a slave is in no position to promise anything to anyone. Never believe a promise from a man or woman who has no discipline. They have broken a thousand promises to themselves, and they will break their promise for you.Discipline is evidence of freedom, and freedom is a prerequisite of love.right. Freedom is the ability to choose and celebrate the-best-version-of-yourself in every moment. Freedom without discipline is impossible.Is freedom, then, the core of the human experience we call life? No. Love is the essence of life. Love is life's great joy and her greatest lesson. Love is the one task worthy of life. We busy ourselves with so many things, while the one great task we set aside, ignore, neglect. Love is your task—to love yourself by striving to becoming the-best-version-of-yourself, to love others by encouraging them and assisting them in their quest to become the-best-versions-of-themselves, and to love God by becoming all you were created to be.But in order to love, you must be free, for to love is to give your self to someone or something freely, completely, unconditionally, and without reservation. It is as if you could take the essence of your very self in your hands and give it to another person. Yet to give your self—to another person, to an endeavor, or to God—you must first possess your self. This possession of self is freedom. It is a prerequisite for love, and is attained only through discipline.This is why so very few relationships thrive in our time. The very nature of love requires self-possession. Without self-mastery, self-control, self-dominion, we are incapable of love. We want to love, but without self-possession we are simply unable to do so. We are not free. We do not possess ourselves and so we cannot give ourselves. As a result, we preoccupy ourselves with all the externals of relationships and call those love
।The problem is that we don't want discipline. We want someone to tell us that we can be happy without discipline. But we can't. In fact, if you want to measure the level of happiness in your life, measure the level of discipline in your life. The two are directly related.Think about it. Americans spent $30 billion last year on dietAllow discipline to permeate every area of your relationship. Let discipline guide you as a couple in your approach to the foods you eat, the ways you exercise, the way you spend your recreation time, the amount of sleep you get, your finances, your sexuality, the way you raise your children, and the ways you explore and share your spirituality.In the lives of successful people, we find that discipline is indispensable. Why would relationships be any different?Is your primary relationship thriving or just surviving?How much is discipline a part of that relationship?Do you want a successful relationship?What makes a successful relationship?A successful relationship is built when two people are striving to become the-best-version-of-themselves, challenging and encouraging each other to become the-best-version-of-themselves, and inspiring others to pursue their essential purpose by the example of their lives and their
love
.You are not just going to wake up one morning in a relationship like that. You have got to want it, and you had better want it bad. Your significant other has got to want it, and want it more than anything else. You have got to formulate a plan (which I will help you do in part three of this book) and you have got to work that plan every day with the discipline of a champion.If there is no discipline, it's not लोवे
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