Are We Not Disciplined Anymore? 2

In my first essay on this topic, I spoke about some ways in which people aren’t so disciplined. In this essay, I would like to counter that by talking about the ways in which we are actually quite disciplined.

Here’s something so many people do, for the majority of their lives. They wake up in the morning, usually reluctantly because they’re lacking sleep. They step outside the comfort of their homes, and put themselves onto car-jammed roads or overcrowded trains. All of this effort and sacrifice of comfort just to get to their jobs, jobs which many people either find boring or hate with a passion. They then stay at that job for around 8 hours, and for a lot of people even more than that because of overtime.

Now, I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds like some serious discipline. If I put it like that, the idea of doing it for even one day seems bad. But to do that for the majority of one’s life, that sounds completely ridiculous. And yet, the reason they do it is because it’s what they must do to survive, to put food on the table.

There are those who enjoy their jobs, sometimes so much that it is their life. There are those who are content to go to the same office almost every day for 40 years. But something tells me there are a far greater number of people who either hate their job, their co-workers, their commute, or a combination of all of those things.

Most first world jobs are not that bad in the moment that they’d make you quit so suddenly, but day by day, year by year, doing something monotonous or infuriating can exhaust you mentally. That’s why I find it so amazing that so many people do this.

In my previous essay I spoke about how easily humans give in to small temptations like eating cake whilst one is on a diet. But somehow, when it comes to working a full-time job, people can overcome temptations like staying in their warm bed or avoiding their miserable job.

I think that some of the reasons people do something so difficult, so regularly, is that it’s the standard routine that you’re expected to do as a member of society. Everybody’s doing the 9 to 5 grind. There are roads that can lead you away from that set path, like establishing a career you enjoy or only working part-time, but for most people they end up working in a job that’s boring, frustrating, etc. for 7 to 9 hours a day.
So, in conclusion, bringing oneself to work every day takes discipline if you’re not one of the lucky people that actually enjoy their job, and this is just one way in which people can be disciplined.

As a final note, I think it’s worth saying that how disciplined someone is varies from person to person. There are really lazy, undisciplined people, and there are people who can willingly put themselves through challenges and difficulty. Through this essay and my first one on the topic, I hope I have shown examples of both.

Thomas

Vocabulary

reluctantly (adverb) – doing something even though one doesn’t really want to
with a passion (idiom) – strongly, with a lot of emotion
put food on the table (idiom) – to make a living and provide resources
first world (noun) – highly developed and industrialized countries including those in western Europe, North America, Japan, Australia & New Zealand;
monotonous (adjective) – repetitive and boring, usually requiring very little mental activity