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To live propose fully and productively requires that we cultivate within ourselves a capacity for self-discipline. Self-discipline is the ability to organize our behavior over time is the service of specific tasks. No one can feel competent to cope with the challenges of life who is without the capacity for self-discipline. Self-discipline requires the ability to defer immediate gratification in the service or remote goal. This is the ability to project consequences into the future to think, plan and live long range. Neither an indicial nor a business can function effectively, let alone flourish, in the absence of the practice.
Like all virtue or practices that support self-esteem, self-discipline is a survival virtue, meaning that for human beings it is requirement of the successful life process. One of the challenge of effective parenthood or effective teaching is to communicate a respect for the present that does not disregard the present. To master this balance is s challenge to all of us. It is essential if we r to enjoy the sense of being in control of our existence.
Perhaps I should mention that a purposeful, self-disciplined life does not mean a life without time or space for rest, relaxation, reaction, random or even frivolous activity. It merely means that such activated are chosen consciously with the knowledge that it is safe and appropriate to engage tin them. And in any event, the temporary abandonment of purpose also serves a purpose, whether consciously intended or not that of regeneration.
