Does Discipline Equal Freedom?

I want to make a video on a concept that I hear a lot of people talking about in selfhelp and uh personal development and the idea is you may have heard it yourself. It's that discipline equals freedom. Right? A lot of people um suppose this idea and it's an interesting one but I want to give my own personal take on it here. Um I want to I want to steal man the the idea first and make sure I'm representing it well. and I'll give my own thoughts on it and I hope it'll give you a different way of thinking about it. Um, and maybe even a deeper understanding of what it means this idea that discipline equals freedom. So, what does it mean discipline equals freedom? Well, the way I think about it, it would be this, and I've mentioned this myself in the past. Let's say when we're procrastinating in life, we are often avoiding important work or important goals that we have and we're engaged in things like playing video games and watching TV and things that are kind of traditionally I guess seen as a waste of time, right? And we are doing fun things, but there's no real enjoyment in them when you really look at it because it's those experiences of playing video games when when you're, you know, avoiding the the goals that you might have. They're infused uh typically with this sense of guilt. So, are we actually enjoying it at all is the question. And I would say there's a great argument to be made that we're actually not enjoying it. Right? It's it might feel preferential to do that instead of the work that we have on or the goal that we want to do, but we're not actually enjoying it because of the guilt. So, in a sense, there's this like there's the hard way and then the really hard way. The hard way is discipline equals freedom, which is you're disciplined in what you're doing and then you can really enjoy the things in your life like video games and all these other things and just maybe not having any goals, being free. That's hard. But what's harder actually, which doesn't look harder, but actually is harder is that thing where you procrastinate and put off those things. And so you're actually not making progress on your goals, but you're not actually even enjoying yourself because you're doing the enjoyable things, but it's infused with this sense of guilt. So in that sense, discipline equals freedom makes sense. It's like, okay, I if I can just get organized enough and do this important thing, I will be able to feel a sense of freedom and enjoyment in those other aspects of life. Discipline equals freedom. Makes sense. And I agree with it to a large degree. But here's the thing I really wanted to to say in this video, right? When I think when most people hear discipline equals freedom, most people say, "Yeah, that makes sense. That's true for me." But here's the thing. How many people feel comfortable saying freedom equals discipline? Just going to let that sit there for a second. How many of us feel comfortable as comfortable saying freedom equals discipline? I think not many. And just to sit with your own reaction to that, do you feel that's a a more risky statement to make? Now, it's literally the same statement, right? If if discipline equals freedom, well, you know, if you've done basic level mathematics, you flip that equation around, it's the freedom equals discipline. It must be true. If they're equal, it's it has to be the case that freedom equals discipline. And that is the part the deeper understanding of this philosophy that's missing in our culture. Yes, discipline equals freedom, but freedom equals discipline. what it looks like practically speaking. I mean you can you can obviously see how freedom equals discip uh uh discipline equals freedom works in a practical level. You get disciplined, you do the thing and then you experience the freedom, right? How does freedom equals discipline work? You put in non-negotiable guilt-free play into your life. Now it's not it's not a a thing that you negotiate on. It's I'm I'm doing this. This is set in my life is something that's non-negotiable. That leads to discipline. Our culture is very very wary of that strategy. It feels very comfortable telling us to be more disciplined and then you can have your freedom. But in my experience, if you can start to get good at guaranteeing your freedom, you are much more likely to be disciplined, to engage with those goals or work things that you maybe tra in the past have avoided. And I promise you that's true. It makes it 10 times more likely that you'll be able to engage with it. If you if you stop seeing rest, play, enjoyment as essentially a secondass need that you have. The need for discipline or I call responsibility is a need. But our culture tells us that that need is is ordinate and play and spontaneity and relaxation are subordinate to that. So no, but discipline equals freedom. Freedom equals discipline, right? They're actually in the same level here. They're the same thing. Now, that So, if you see anyone talking about that idea online, it's typically coming from a self-help, self-improvement, push yourself mentality. And it's true. It has some truth to it, but I I wonder sometimes if there's a deeper understanding of it, if they've really considered what it means. Freedom equals discipline is just as true. And from in my experience, it's the part of the equation that people feel uncomfortable with. So if you can become comfortable with that, you start seeing that your freedom, your play is not contingent on anything else. It's its own thing. It's equal to discipline. It's just as important. So therefore, it can't be contingent on it. You become a very, very different animal. very different. You stop treating yourself uh or your own needs or one of your needs was the need for play and spontaneity and relaxation as a secondass citizen within yourself, right? And you lose all the resistance that was there before due to that um ranking of your needs. So I think subtly what discipline equals freedom really means is discipline comes first and is more important than freedom. when that's not really what it's saying. It's saying discipline equals freedom. So freedom must be equal to discipline. So practically speaking, what you can try is like you may say, well look, I feel uncomfortable about that giving myself this this freedom. And that's because in the past, more than likely when you did have freedom, it was in in infused with guilt. You were feeling guilty about it all the time. And that's because you weren't taking it seriously. You weren't doing it on purpose. you weren't doing it with intention. How you take the guilt out of it is you do it on purpose. Most of us kind of fall into video games or find ourselves watching TV when we, you know, should be doing the other project or whatever. And when you fall into something, it's unintentional and that's when guilt comes into it. But if you can say, okay, I have to take freedom really really as just as as seriously as as discipline. Okay. Well, I would have no problem scheduling discipline. I'm going to schedule freedom. When you schedule it, you're doing it on purpose and are far less likely to feel any guilt about it. Right now, that's truly restorative actually when you're actually enjoying something like that and there's no guilt. The guilt actually makes it so that you can't actually get any benefit out of it. Really, it makes it worse. So, I want you to do me a favor, right? If you see anyone talking about this idea online, share this video with them. And I'd like to get their feedback because I think it's a pretty common idea out there. And again, I don't necessarily disagree with it. But I think for a lot of us, there's a nuance missing with it. Discipline equals freedom, but freedom equals discipline. And that's the part that we've been missing. So if you see anyone talking about online, share this video. Let's get a debate going on this. Maybe I think it could do with a little bit more nuance in in the discussion around that. And uh it would be um interesting to hear from the advocates of that what they think of it. Maybe if you disagree with this, tell me below. I'll read it. Maybe I'll even make a response video to it. If you're adamant that discipline is essential for freedom and it's ordinate to it and it must come first, it's the, you know, you you can't have your dessert until you finish your broccoli, right? Well, okay, tell me about it below in the comments and let me know. But, uh, if you did enjoy this video, you know, let me know that as well if you found it useful. And, um, I hope it was. And, uh, I'll see you in the next video. Hope that was uh interesting and uh take care of yourself until next time. Okay, bye-bye. [music]