Thinking About Discipline

I sit looking at the chair thinking about discipline. I am aware that I have come up with directions forward for One Chair that approach structure, but I have not set them down. I have not marked time frames. I have not written it up. I have not defined scope. I see this as a kind of faltering. Perhaps it’s connected to commitment, to my fear of, “Do I really want to do this, can I really do this project that I’ve set before myself?”

And then come the questions of how. These are important questions, I recognize this. How can I help myself to move through this in ways where I am uncomfortable? How can I change the ways that I go about doing something, in a way that builds more confidence, in a way that I can rely on? How can I use this project to become a version of myself that I want to be?

This movement between the vision I seek to create and coming to grasp what is necessary for me to develop- the learning that I must, maybe not must but choose to take on consciously, well, this throws back to me my agency. And, how I falter with my ability. How fear enters in and tries to undermine my ability to work with the unknown, with what is not yet manifested, with what potential lies in this project.

Part of it comes from this project being born from my idea. An idea that is mine alone and that I want to try. This bumps up against the difference between following someone else’s lead, how one can rely on the skill of others to shortcut the way through. I like shortcuts. I can be impatient. I can see something and know that it’s possible and yet not know or have the ability to do that for myself, yet.

So it’s about how can I become my best teacher, and how can I also be my best student. I am both here. This creates a certain tension. One that I am learning to recognize as well as work with. To know how to be both. This requires discipline.