3 Steps to Being Disciplined Without Being a Total Square

Hello fellow Steemians!

Firstly I want to announce that I’ve once again made some adjustments to my I Ching blog. For the last few weeks I was divinating for future events. Up till now every time I consulted the I Ching, it was for forecasting the next day to follow. I realized over the weekend that I was going about this all wrong. The I Ching, though it has been used for fortune telling, is best consulted in and for the moment you seek it’s wisdom. From now on, I’ll be drawing from it’s wisdom, to write to you about it’s concepts and how it may be of help or bring awareness to our lives.

28. Ta Kuo — 43. Kuai

Everybody seeks positive change, do we not? The problem is identifying those areas that need change and differentiating them from the areas we desire change. For example, in my own case, I might want macro-changes in the areas of finance and material success. But perhaps, what really needs to change is my idea that I’m currently in a situation that can only be repaired by more money and/or status! As a man, living up to western male standards, will make the presumption that I must work harder or force and battle with myself to make corrections in my life so that I live up to the standards of most men of my age and demographics.

What the above hexagrams (Ta Kuo, with changing Yin in the first line, becoming Kuai) communicates, is resolute and decisive action to ‘diplomatically’ make the necessary changes in your life without devolving into a total square.

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Here, though a change of course is absolutely necessary, we aren’t wrestling with ourselves to change things. This hard-lined approach is akin to ‘going cold turkey’. Often we mood our behaviours by creating a taboo around them. We make them forbidden and prohibited. However in the process of creating the stigma, we also lay the seeds of temptation. This inherent curiosity of our human-ness is natural and inescapable. The thirst for curiosities to be quenched has been echoed throughout time. It was Mark Twain who once said, “There is a charm for the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.” More recently, from the baddest man himself, Mike Tyson, “I’m just like you. I enjoy the forbidden fruits in life, too.”

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Personally, I’m no angel. There’s definitely a curious, explorative, trickster in me that enjoys various forms of debauchery and sensual pleasure. Growing up, I was raised on the classically prude Judeo-Christian principals, reinforced by systems of shame and guilt. This puritanical archetype, was a dominant force in my own ego for most of my life. It has only been up until very recently that I’ve began to work through this underlying ‘boot-up disk’ that informs my words, actions and choices. I think many of my vices today, took root in my adolescence, as a forceful (Yang) movement to balance my light with my dark.

Being totally honest with myself, some of those vices that served me in opening my mind, have inversely become rooted in my own idea of who I am. Let’s take my relationship with marijuana for example. It’s purpose in my own life is positive, but when I overuse it, it’s undoubtedly negative. On one hand, it relaxes me, and helps me to see things from different angles. It’s also a means to bond with friends. However, when I overuse it, it can contest my lungs and irritate my throat. I can also become unmotivated and antisocial.

I navigate this relationship by:

Allowing myself to be completely honest with myself about how it might be affecting my life. I might journal on how this is affecting my life.
Establishing healthy boundaries for myself. I’ll create limitations for the behaviour that is in question. Instead of engaging in it everyday, I’ll regulate it to weekends.
When I partake in the behaviour I’m trying to correct, I try to do it deliberately by making myself completely present in the process.

From there, I can asses how these changes have affected my life. Usually the results are good until they’re not! LOL.. In which case, I reawaken from the slumber. I think it’s important to remind ourselves that we aren’t robots that can just implement things in our lives without experiencing bumps and obstructions along the way. These are natural and perfectly fine and the Tao would suggest that these moments be embraced. In learning how to exercise our “soft power”, we can be kind leaders to ourselves and naturally others as well.

Stay blessed always,

Lee