Discipline and Flexibility
Many think that discipline and flexibility are inversely correlated-- that the more disciplined a person may be, the less flexible he or she is.
For example, a person who is adhering to a strict diet has little leeway in what can be eaten.
A person who follows a regimented work-out schedule has less free time to do something spontaneous.
We think of the disciplined stereotypes-- the Marine, the monk, the Olympic athlete-- and we tend to perceive them as focused individuals who sacrifice freedom and options in order to adhere to a stoic lifestyle with very little variation.
And on the other hand, it's easy to picture an individual with a life of total flexibility-- a hippie or stoner, for example-- and see how a "free" lifestyle equates with a discipline void.
So is it either/or? Max out on the discipline and lose flexibility; live a life a flexibility and shun discipline?
Of course, most of us see ourselves somewhere around the top of the bell curve, got some discipline got some flexibility, not too extreme either way.
But is the graph correct? Is the correlation truly inverse?
It's hard to be disciplined if we feel that it lessens our flexibility. And it's hard to keep things "loose" if it means we lose discipline in the process.
What if discipline and flexibility are, in fact, directly correlated? Or in other words, despite our current paradigms, what if the actual truth is: increasing our discipline in life expands our capacity to be flexible?
... that the flexibility we foster in our hearts and minds links, in the long run, to a disciplined soul?
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