Discipline is Freedom.

This past month I have been fabulous at getting nothing done. Well, not nothing exactly: I’ve watched several seasons of Friends and Murder She Wrote, shoveled my driveway during the snowstorm of the century & done copious amounts of ant control around my house. All good things, but not so much what I’m supposed to be getting done: writing and reading (you know, getting a PhD). The long and the short of it is that I think I need to get back on some fatigue medicines. I'm just too tired without them.

I was talking with a friend about this and was remembering how the first time I went on these medicines was totally awful. But—it was because, overnight, I had to make all these huge lifestyle changes. The medicine I was taking can give you seizures if you drink caffeine and it kills your alcohol tolerance (so you basically can’t drink.) Also, it makes you sort of sick if you don't keep a pretty consistent sleeping and eating schedule. (I know, it sounds awful, but it works wonders.)

At the time I got sick, my schedule was insane: staying up until 2 or 3 am to write, drinking ridiculous amounts of Diet Coke and Mountain Dew (and other tasty drinks) every day (okay: several times a day), commuting 70 miles to work each way through a mountain pass, driving 18 hours in a single stretch every few months to come home for breaks, teaching and taking classes and going to readings and being on committees and working 15-20 hours a week on top of that at a part-time job. It was sort of glorious but also totally unsustainable.

My friend and old wilderness trip partner Andrew (who just got married!) used to always say "Discipline is freedom." I didn't really buy it at the time, but I've been thinking about it a lot lately (years later). Save this month, my life's been pretty disciplined for the past two years--lots of building rest and sabbath into my schedule, taking out caffeine and alcohol and not joining stuff I don't need to, making time to write. For the most part, the discipline's been great--I feel better, which is huge--and also I am finally figuring out what stuff matters to me & trying to build my life around that (friends, the outdoors, etc).

Every once in awhile, though, I do miss the old crazy life. There was something invigorating about being so busy and moving so fast. And it was comforting in this strange sort of way--feeling a constant sense of forward momentum, like I was doing and achieving a lot, making progress towards something--though I can't put my finger exactly on what that something was. I sense Andrew's right and that my life is somehow more free now than it was before, but I also do wonder sometimes about that paradox of discipline & freedom and whether the pursuit of discipline means not only crowding bad things out of my life, but some good things too.


*The photo is of Andrew and I and all the other trip leaders I led with that summer.