Before we begin, I just want to state out loud how soul-crushing a salad can be. Even a “good” one. Today’s lunch was a pre-packaged apple walnut chicken salad. Maybe the “pre-packaged” was my mistake. Or maybe it was the apples or the walnuts or the feta cheese. Or maybe it just was nothing more than that it was a salad. I’m trying to make good choices with the things I put in my mouth (is a salad a good choice???)…baby steps.

I can be so disciplined in some areas of my life, while being a 6 year-old in others. I wonder how both can be true. I can go to the gym at 5am every day but I can’t seem to not eat the garbage that I know will make me sick. I don’t always like the gym, but it’s so much a part of me and what I do that I don’t even consider if I want to. But in the kitchen, I want, therefore I eat.

When you look up discipline, much of what comes up in definitions is related to punishment. That doesn’t seem like a truly transformative practice. People don’t usually make healthy changes from a negative posture, from the “Do/Don’t…or else,” school of thought.

This is what Wikipedia says: Self-discipline refers to one’s ability to control one’s behavior and actions to achieve a goal or to maintain a certain standard of conduct. It is the ability to train oneself to do things that should be done and resist things that should be avoided…Self-discipline can also be defined as the ability to give up immediate pleasures for long-term goals…Self-discipline is about one’s ability to control their desires and impulses to keep themselves focused on what needs to get done to successfully achieve a goal. It is about taking small, consistent steps of daily action to build a strong set of disciplined habits that fulfill your objectives. One trains themselves to follow rules and standards that help determine, coalesce, and line up one’s thoughts and actions with the task at hand. Small acts allow one to achieve greater goals. The key component of self-discipline is the trait of perseverance…Discipline is about internal and external consistencies.

I think Wikipedia is more right than the rest of the scholars out there. The root of discipline means “to teach,” but the root of punishment means “pain.”

I wonder what my problem is, using this definition as our guide. I do have the ability to train my oneself to do things that should be done and resist things that should be avoided. Maybe I don’t use it when it comes to Oreos, but it is something I have in my repertoire. Focus? I don’t have a disorder or anything. I can focus for long periods. Sometimes, though, my focus drifts to focusing on Oreos, and then that positive trait isn’t quite so positive. I can be very consistent. Maybe I lack perseverance? When I take personality tests, they always tell me I lack follow through. Is that the same? But as I get older, I follow through, maybe what they mean is that I lack the desire to follow through.

Wikipedia also says this: An action conforms to a value. In other words, one allows values to determine one’s own choices.

An action conforms to a value. That’s awesome. In many, many contexts. There’s a cliché, when people show you who they are, believe them. Because actions conform to values. Maybe I simply don’t value eating properly. Why not? I think I do.

But when the couple comes to me and the boy says, “I love her, I just treat her like trash sometimes,” we all know the action supersedes the hollow words. He doesn’t love her, at least not in any meaningful way, not in any higher definition of love. He loves how she makes him feel, or the idea of her, or the idea of being with someone, or whatever.

So, you can be forgiven for saying I don’t value healthy eating. You’re right, I suppose. Maybe I value the idea of eating good, or saying I do. The action is conforming to the value, isn’t it?

How do I change a value? When I searched that, it tells me through introspection and reflection. If that was enough, I’d be the foremost authority on healthy eating habits. I do not lack in introspection or reflection. Every article just says more and more of the same, think about it, visualize what you want, and on and on.

It’s much harder to visualize, “I want to eat better, so I can be a healthy man, inside and out,” than it is to visualize abs. I don’t really want abs, too much. I’ve never had them, so I don’t miss them or anything.

I’ll be 50 this year. It’s important, and it probably starts with transforming the way I think about salad. Today, for lunch, I had a terrific apple walnut salad and it was so satisfying & delicious!!! (Maybe transformation can begin with a helpful lie, and continue until it’s not a lie. Who knows?)