Discipline

Growing up, my father loved to tell us, "You kids have no discipline.  That's one thing I learned in the Army--discipline."  My father was not a stereotypical Army dad by any means.  He joined the Army after altering his birth certificate when he was only 16, and then spent every second of his enlistment counting down the number of days he had left til he got out.  But the one thing he took away from the Army that he always seemed to value highly was discipline. I was always the first person to agree with him that I had absolutely none.  Before I joined the Army, my alarm clock was the bane of my existence.  What I didn't understand was why, if my father prized discipline so much, he didn't teach it to us rather than constantly remind us how lacking we were in it.  Either way, if I were to be completely honest about all of my own motivations for joining the Army, I would have to admit that the hope of acquiring, perhaps through osmosis, this elusive and oft referenced character trait weighed heavily in the decision making process.

I would have to say my father wasn't lying.  Perhaps one of the most valuable lessons a soldier walks away from the Army with is those that pertain to self-discipline.  A huge piece of being disciplined is following through with your responsibilities when there is something more fun you'd much rather be doing.  Whether it's your responsibility to get your ass out of bed in the morning when the more fun choice is throwing the alarm clock against the wall and going back to sleep, or it's the college student who passes up a Friday night out when they know they have a huge term paper due on Monday, often times discipline boils down to saying "No" to something you want to do in favor of just doing something you'd rather not do.

So this week, as I was preparing for my third and final foot surgery, I made sure I had all my ducks in a row so that I could spend two days recovering, then wake up and go sell soap at the flea market on Sunday.  (Making soap is one of the many hats I wear while I'm making other plans, waiting for a real job to come through).  I spent the two days before my surgery making soap and stocking up my inventory for the market.  I spent Thursday in surgery and Friday doing a comparative market analysis for my father while still glued to the couch in a pain-killer induced haze because dad wants to contest his property taxes on Wednesday.  Saturday I shrink wrapped and labeled soap for the market on Sunday.  In the meantime, my mother spent all week trying to talk me out of going to the market on Sunday because she wanted me to join her and my niece for brunch at a lovely golf course instead.  Sunday brunch sounded far more appealing than selling soap with a bum foot, but I reminded myself that doing the responsible thing usually means passing on the fun thing.  Saturday night rolls around, and my husband decides he wants to go out with some friends who we haven't seen in a long time.  I can't remember the last time we had an available babysitter (aka nana) and an invitation to go out coincide on the same night.  To say the invitation was extremely tempting would be a gross understatement, but I knew I had an early morning, and still being exhausted from my foot surgery, it was a terrible night to socialize.  Finally I agreed to go when my husband promised to have me home by midnight.  Exactly two hours and two beers later, I nudged my husband to pull around the carriage, and we made it home just in time for it to turn back into a pumpkin.

I was feeling pretty good about myself when I pulled my butt out of bed this morning and started hobbling around with one good foot to get ready for a day of selling soap.  My husband loaded up the truck because I still can't do any heavy lifting, but I figured I could handle sitting in a lawn chair under a tent all day.  Everyone who tries my soap seems to really love it, but the business has been incredibly slow going getting off the ground.  The flea market is the only place where I've generated any kind of real sales volume, albeit small volume due to poor foot traffic, but definite sales none-the-less.  It's only once a week, and it's the best shot I have of promoting the webstore and getting my name out there.  So although it was difficult to say "no" to all the fun things I would have rather been doing than going to bed at a reasonable hour and waking up early to go sell soap, I was thankful the Army helped me obtain some of that incredibly useful discipline my father was always talking about.  It would have really come in handy if we didn't get all the way up to the market to find it cancelled because not enough vendors showed up.  Guess they didn't get the memo about discipline.