The United States Marine Corps, built on discipline, defines it this way: “Discipline is the instant willingness and obedience to all orders, respect for authority. . . . The ability to do the right thing even when no one is watching. . . .”
This definition serves equally for self-discipline. “I am the boss of myself” means I has disciplined myself to follow I’s orders.
Everything has its enemy to be on guard against. And what is discipline’s enemy? Doubt, and the Soviet mountaineer Vladimir Shatayev explains why:
Discipline is the kind of concept that, if you doubt it partially, you tear it down completely.
(Vladimir Shatayev is quoted from The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. Charles Romesburg, p. 243.)
Reviewing Vladimir Shatayev’s book Degrees of Difficulty, William A. Wortman, Miami University Library wrote this about discipline: “The autobiography of a leading Soviet mountaineer, ending in 1974 with a moving account of his climb to retrieve the bodies of eight Soviet women climbers, among them his wife. As mountaineering literature, this is impressionistic, rather than a narrative description of climbs, but Shatayev writes strongly about Soviet mountaineering, whose rules and ethics he helped develop. Discipline and organization restrain the egos of individuals but encourage and enable challenging climbs. Climbers learn their limits and responsibilities and seek something beyond danger: ‘to walk in risk and deprivation, but in return to receive a firm, unshakable belief in the fraternity of mountaineers.’”
This definition serves equally for self-discipline. “I am the boss of myself” means I has disciplined myself to follow I’s orders.
Everything has its enemy to be on guard against. And what is discipline’s enemy? Doubt, and the Soviet mountaineer Vladimir Shatayev explains why:
Discipline is the kind of concept that, if you doubt it partially, you tear it down completely.
(Vladimir Shatayev is quoted from The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. Charles Romesburg, p. 243.)
Reviewing Vladimir Shatayev’s book Degrees of Difficulty, William A. Wortman, Miami University Library wrote this about discipline: “The autobiography of a leading Soviet mountaineer, ending in 1974 with a moving account of his climb to retrieve the bodies of eight Soviet women climbers, among them his wife. As mountaineering literature, this is impressionistic, rather than a narrative description of climbs, but Shatayev writes strongly about Soviet mountaineering, whose rules and ethics he helped develop. Discipline and organization restrain the egos of individuals but encourage and enable challenging climbs. Climbers learn their limits and responsibilities and seek something beyond danger: ‘to walk in risk and deprivation, but in return to receive a firm, unshakable belief in the fraternity of mountaineers.’”
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