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Originally Posted by boston  I go to Harvard Univ, right now is finals week. |
Sorry, I can't help you. A friend of mine goes to Yale, and I don't know if he would appreciate it if I helped the enemy. B-)
Ok, seriously, though:
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I am having tons of trouble with self discipline...I've started smoking again (I used to in high school), and I spend money VERY carelessly these days. I've never been like this, so I really need to find a source to give me more discipline.
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Problem is, now all I do all day is read self-help. I will spend a day reading four or five psychology or self-help books, and I can't focus on the task at hand.
Some external reasons are that my father won't stop treating me like a child, so I'm going through lots of angst toward him...again, I can't control my anger these days, I'm trying to.
Also, I hate my roommates.
I don't have much of an outside crowd either.
I think my problem is something deeper. Plus, the books just make me more nervous in public.
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You're reading self-help, and you've even read Covey, yet you seem to be putting a lot of emphasis on external things. I know an 8-year old who says to me "You are making me so angry" because I won't always give him a straight answer or give him what he wants. I always respond to him, "I am not making you angry. You're choosing to get angry." He just gets more upset at that answer.
I'm not calling you a child, but the point is that you are in charge of your own thoughts. Your father can call you all he wants. Your roommates can be demons from hell. You can fail every test. No matter what happens, you are still in charge of your own thoughts.
I'm not dismissing these things as trivial. It's just that you have a choice in the matter. If your father calls and continues to baby you, you can choose to get angry about it, or you can choose to not be angry. As said above, you can even choose not to answer the phone. You can choose new roommates.
You can also figure out why you are getting angry. It's never because of some external source. You aren't angry that your father is babying you on the phone. Perhaps you're angry because you don't feel like you measure up to his standards, and his calls just remind you that he doesn't seem to trust you to be a man. Or perhaps you don't like him and wish he would just leave you alone. Or perhaps you do like him and wish his calls wouldn't be so patronizing and instead would be about things you would prefer to talk about. I don't know, and I don't pretend to know. You, however, might know.
Why do you hate your roommates? Hate is a very strong word, and maybe you don't actually hate them, but for the sake of argument, why choose hate? They aren't in charge of your decisions, so what makes hate a better choice than understanding, or indifference, or any other thing?
Along the same lines, you started smoking. You are spending without a budget. No one made you do either of these things. Even if someone asked you to do it, or if someone told you to do it, you are still the one responsible for your actions.
So if you want to find a source for discipline, it's you. You are the one who can exercise your self-discipline, and you are the one who is ultimately going to make your situation better. It's simultaneously scary and empowering to realize that no one is going to come to the rescue. It's scary because it sounds lonely, but it is empowering because you have to realize that you are enough.