Friday, April 06, 2007

Is it really always discipline?

Discipline is something I can't really grasp most of the time.


For example, as I'm overweight, I guess people look at me and say "she doesn't have the discipline to exercise and diet, that's why she's fat" ... though usually not to me.

But do other people, people who are slim and exercise regularly, really have more discipline? After giving it a thought for over a week, there's just one thing I can really say to this: "I don't think so!" And this post is about the "why".


I don't like to exercise, so for me doing it regularly would afford discipline - and yes, I know I'm lacking it, but I fight my lack of discipline every day, even though I can't always win. But is it discipline if a person who likes sports exercises regularly? Doing something you really like has, for me, nothing at all to do with discipline. Doing something you really like is fun. And we all like fun, don't we?

Spending about two hours every evening in front of the computer and writing (posts, stories, other stuff) is fun for me, but I guess a lot of people would need a lot of discipline to do that.


So does it necessarily mean that somebody has more discipline, if he or she is thin? He or she might, for example, absolutely adore all sorts of sports and thus exercise very regularly - then it doesn't matter what the person eats or drinks during the day. He or she might also just enjoy living mostly on vegetables and other food that is low on calories and will not appear as fat on his or her body.


I was, by the way, inspired to this post by last weeks edition of "Hart aber fair", one of the TV-magazines I watch regularly. There a woman who admits she doesn't like sitting still somewhere and "doesn't feel well without jogging at least once a day" claimed that all the overweight people are just too weak to be as disciplined as she is. Well, if I "didn't feel well" without running a couple of miles every day, I surely wouldn't be overweight either, would I? But I probably wouldn't have the time or the discipline to write a post like this one after eight hours of work (even though, as I'm writing this on the Thursday before Eastern, I won't have to get up early tomorrow and I will go to bed late - what can I say, I'm a night-owl).

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