Discipline

We've all had this problem before: you just don't want to do something.

May it be going to work, doing an assignment, washing the car, doing taxes, etc. Whatever it may be, we've all had many times where our motivation for doing something was solely based on our mental discipline. Our duty to do something right, morally or otherwise, pushes us beyond our instinctual and emotional limits and finish the job we set out to do.

In a society geared towards individuality, we have the tendency to forgo personal responsibility and rely on blaming outside influences. Your kid acts out? It's a disease and not your parenting. Your eating habits suck? It's Big Food's fault and not your patronage of fast food joints. Your grades are low? It's the school's fault and not your twenty missing assignments. I know first-hand. I was and still am at points flawed in the sad skill of deflection of responsibility.

In this society that is geared towards maximum individuality, we are missing our societal discipline more so than ever before. The blame for the recession (which is well documented on this blog) being the most recent of a string of irresponsibility being passed around to anyone but the individual.

Since the invasion of Iraq, we have slowly given in to selfish views on how to fight it and the greater War on Terror. Arguments for surrenderer have always had a tinge if selfishness. When I was a leftist, I know my arguments came out of a childish and paranoid fear of a greater war and absolute power in the hands of a few. The war has had little impact on the real material wealth of the country in compared to other wars and events, so there is no basis in the greater economy (as many leftist love to argue about).

It comes down to personal beliefs and the need for the individual to be right, even if its against the best interests of their country. Sometimes the personal goes too far. There is an unhealthy love of individual righteousness in many people instead of a healthy love of simple individuality.

There are times in our lives when our discipline will mean the world to someone or to a group or to a town or even to our country. There will be times we have to temporarily put aside our personalities and our individuality and step up to help someone else.

You don't have to give up your individuality forever.

Your rights won't disappear with your duty as a citizen of a free nation.

Your duty as a citizen protects your rights.