The Curse of Discipline

The curse of discipline is that every day looks the same. The curse of indiscipline is that every year looks the same.

That hits differently when you know what it feels like to promise yourself that next week, next month, or next year will be better. You mean it every time. Then the time comes, and you’re still making the same promise.

This year has been very different. It’s made me think about that quote, and about the parts of my life I kept promising to work on.

When I say indiscipline, I don’t mean I haven’t been working hard. I have a demanding job and very high standards for myself. For a long time, work has been where I feel like things are under control. It’s stressful, but those stresses are familiar. It’s been easy to put more of myself into it.

That sense of control has been harder to find outside work. Getting fit again, building meaningful relationships, and learning new things all mean stepping outside my comfort zone. For years, I wanted to make progress in those parts of my life, but I kept finding reasons to leave them for later. A demanding job made those reasons easy to defend. Of course I was tired. Of course I had nothing left for anything else.

Next week. Next month. Next year.

My marriage ended this year. I’m not officially divorced yet (apparently, there’s a whole process you have to go through), but for all intents and purposes, I’m single again.

I won’t get into why it ended here. That’s personal, and it isn’t just my story to tell. But it left me looking closely at how I’d been living and what I wanted for myself.

Writing about this publicly feels vulnerable. But here I am, discovering myself again at 41. New zip code, new surroundings, new friends. Moving closer to family also means more home-cooked meals. No complaints there.

I still have the same job, and I’m still fully remote. Living closer to the office gives me the choice to go in and spend time with my team, which always leaves me feeling recharged.

Even with family closer and more time with my team, I’ve had plenty of time to myself.

There’s an image from a videogame that I keep thinking about. I’ve been playing Destiny for more than ten years, and one of its raids (a challenge where six players coordinate to get through fights and puzzles) uses pictures to help players communicate.

One of those pictures is the silhouette of a person with a black circle in their chest. A hole where something should be.

We call it grief.

Therapy helped me recognize that feeling in myself. I’d always associated grief with someone dying, with an absence you can’t change. It was a weird word to apply to the end of my marriage.

It came in waves, and sometimes still does. A memory suggested by my phone, or the familiar impulse to share something that happened during the day, can catch me off guard.

Grief is just love with no place to go.

I don’t want my marriage back. I’ve moved on from that relationship, but I miss sharing everyday life with someone. Someone to tell about the small things that happened during the day. Acts of service are my favourite way to show love, and I miss having someone around I can spoil.

Outside work, I’d built much of my life around being a husband. With my marriage over, I’ve been asking myself: Who am I as an individual? That’s a scary question to ask at 41. But I think I’m starting to figure it out. I don’t need to have a complete answer to start doing the things I kept putting off. I think doing them can help me find that answer and feel more whole.

I’m writing this blog post, and I want to write twenty more by the end of the year. I want to make writing a daily habit, stretch myself beyond what I usually write, and pick up the novel I keep putting away.

Flashy, my flashcards app, shipped its first beta last week. There’s more I want to build on there.

I went on a 6.5 km walk with Taco, long enough to tire him out and get him snoring. I want to get fit again and document my progress. Giving Taco the best life a dog can have is part of this, too.

I want to feel more secure in relationships. I’m also learning to give people room to move at their own pace, even when I’m excited about where things could go. I’m working on the anxious attachment patterns I recognize in myself, and on my tendency to hyperfixate. Iuri recently reminded me that work is something we can get attached to, too.

I still look forward to Mondays. I care deeply about the work we do and the people I do it with.

Writing more, building my own app, and getting fit are things I’ve wanted for years. I’ve made a start, and I want to keep at them this time.

Maybe the curse of discipline is that every day looks the same. But if that means writing a little, working on my app, getting some exercise, and falling asleep to Taco’s snores, I think I’d be happy to have another day like that.