My old version of discipline looked like punishment with extra steps. Waking up at five even on no sleep. Skipping meals i did not deserve in my own head because i had not earned them yet. Treating every form of rest like a reward i needed to unlock through suffering first.
It worked for a while in the way forcing anything works for a while. Then my body simply stopped cooperating. Burnout does not ask permission. It just arrives and takes everything down with it, including the discipline you were so proud of maintaining.
It took genuinely falling apart to rebuild my understanding of what discipline even means. I used to think it meant being harsh with myself constantly, treating my own comfort like the enemy of progress. Now i think discipline is closer to respect than to punishment. It is choosing, again and again, the action that the version of me i actually respect would choose, without needing to suffer first to deserve that choice.
That sounds like a small difference on paper. It changes everything in practice.
Punishment assumes you cannot be trusted unless forced. Respect assumes you are worth showing up for, plainly, without needing pain attached as proof you tried hard enough.
I see it now in the smaller decisions. Going to sleep at a reasonable hour, not because i am forcing myself into some rigid schedule, but because i have started actually caring how my mornings feel. Moving my body because it feels good to be inside it, not as a penalty for what i ate the day before. Saying no to plans that would drain me, not from stubborn rule following, but because i finally started protecting my own energy the way i would protect a friend's.
The punishing voice still shows up sometimes. Old habits do not disappear overnight just because you understand them better now. But i notice it faster these days, and i choose the gentler, steadier version more often than i used to.
Discipline was never supposed to be war against yourself. It was always supposed to be loyalty toward yourself, even on days that loyalty is hard to access.
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