Discipline Is Destiny is a book by Ryan Holiday, published in 2022. The book explores the power of self-control and how it can help shape our lives and destinies.
The book focuses on Stoic philosophy and the importance of having discipline and self-control in order to achieve our goals.
It explores how discipline can help us make better decisions and lead healthier, more meaningful lives.
It also provides practical advice on how to build and maintain discipline and self-control, as well as how to identify and overcome obstacles.
The Premise: The Virtue of Temperance in the Modern World
Most people in any modern, developed nation have everything they need to survive and then some. Today, ordinary people live the way kings and queens would have been lucky to live in the past. We have the freedom to do anything we want, go anywhere we want, and believe anything we want.
At the push of a button, we have access to all the pleasures and distractions in the world. With so many luxuries and opportunities at our fingertips, it can be challenging to live a life of virtue.
In ancient times, four key components defined virtue: courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. While each element is distinct from the rest, each virtue is interrelated. While it’s challenging to live a virtuous life in today’s world, it’s not impossible.
With some focus and determination, anyone can master each virtue and live a life of honor, glory, and excellence in every sense.
Achieving Temperance Contd.
Cultivating temperance in your higher self requires you to create healthy boundaries for yourself. Understand, first and foremost, that “We don’t need accomplishments to feel good or to be good enough. What do we need? The truth: not much!
- Some food and water.
- Work that we can challenge ourselves with.
- A calm mind in the midst of adversity.
- Sleep.
- A solid routine.
- A cause we are committed to.
- Something we’re getting better at.
Everything else is extra. Or worse, as history has shown countless times, the source of our painful downfall.
Creating the boundaries you need to follow the rules above will give you the space you need to align your body, mind, and spirit so that you can discover all that you’re capable of achieving, which is likely to be more than you thought possible.
The Body(Exterior)
In today’s modern world, it’s pretty common to come across a person who appears to have everything they could ever want or need but still feels dissatisfied, discontent, and overwhelmed.
Because it’s so easy for us to get what we want, yet we’re exposed to such an abundance of things that no one person can ever really have it all, it’s almost impossible to live in the moment and maintain a sense of gratitude for what’s around us in our daily lives.
The Body: Self Discipline
The road to greatness requires temperance, and it all starts with self-discipline, which begins with taking care of your body. Those who have mastery over their souls are unafraid of change and scarcity, while those who practice self-discipline are not only physically fit but also happier and more balanced.
Discipline frees us from our chains and enables us to live a great life, while lack of self-control enslaves us. By choosing the hard path of discipline, we save ourselves and become of greater service to others.
Temperance
Temperance is about living a simple, modest life. It’s about forging fortitude and self-control in all aspects except toughness and determination. We owe it to ourselves, to our goals, to the game, to keep going.
To keep pushing. To stay pure. To be tough. To conquer our bodies before they conquer us.” To begin developing the virtue of temperance,
When you have trouble waking up, when you find it hard, remind yourself of who you come from, remind yourself of the tradition, remind yourself of what is at stake. Think of how lucky you are. Be glad to be awake (because it’s better than the alternative, which we’ll all greet one day).
Feel the joy of being able to do what you love. Cherish the time. But most of all, use it.
Achieving Temperance
Temperance is the virtue of self-control, moderation, and restraint, particularly in regard to the consumption of food, drink, and other physical pleasures.
- Cultivating temperance is about more than just physical discipline. True self-control means moderation in how we think, feel, and behave, and it requires us to work smarter, not harder.
- This journey begins with understanding the difference between our higher and lower selves and practicing the discipline to say no to superfluous things.
- Once we’ve identified our main thing, we must put our entire mind into it and cultivate the discipline of patience.
- The ultimate goal is to achieve temperance creatively, consciously, calmly, with equanimity and poise, even initiative and joy.
- It’s an all-consuming, full-time endeavor, but the longer we stay at it, the more impressive and rewarding it becomes.
The Ultimate Mastery
Mastering the virtue of temperance requires more than just physical and mental discipline. It’s about selflessness and sacrifice, putting your ego aside and persevering even in the midst of chaos and temptation. It is the mastering of the soul.
Achieving this level of self-mastery is rare, and it requires flexibility and the ability to adjust to changes in the world while staying true to your principles. Self-discipline and temperance must be cultivated and embodied in our actions, not just our thoughts.
It’s a constant choice we make, every day, to live up to impossible standards and give of ourselves while maintaining control.
Don’t go overboard
Beyond necessity, when everything we could dream of having is right at our fingertips, we become vulnerable to increasing desires, gluttony, laziness, and many other less-than-virtuous character traits.
Even those who live their lives with the best intentions often end up neglecting their bodies and minds, falling into bad habits, and experiencing a state of internal imbalance.
When our desires outgrow necessity, we find ourselves working harder and harder to get what we want and often ending up burnt out, stressed out, and in debt.
No one is having less fun than an overextended, overcommitted person with debtors at their door . . . or a high-paying job they can’t afford to lose. No one is less free than the person trapped on the treadmill moving faster and faster and faster but going nowhere.
The less you desire, the richer you are, the freer you are, the more powerful you are. It’s that simple.
Fuel your body
The most important thing we can do to cultivate the virtue of temperance and achieve greatness is to take care of our bodies Not just in the gym, but in the kitchen too. We need to fuel our bodies with quality stuff. Following this seemingly simple path is far from easy.
If we don’t dominate ourselves physically, who and what does dominate? Outside forces. Laziness. Adversity. Entropy. Atrophy. We know that while it might seem easy to take it easy and more pleasurable to indulge our pleasure centers, in the long run, it is a far more painful route.
