🎈 You Should Care More About Discipline

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The world is not natural anymore.

Your phone provides on-demand dopamine.

Your lights enable you to stay up all night.

Your headphones provide you with 24/7 stimulation.

Your social media feeds you with endless social validation.

Your grocery store offers you endless fat & sugar.

You get the point.

The world has evolved, but your brain has not. So new strategies are needed to restrain oneself and live happily. Without any strategy, the default is addiction (to screens, entertainment, and video games), obesity, and mental instability.

The strategy I have found to be most durable and reliable is self-discipline.

Self discipline is the ability to behave autonomously from the brain's reward circuitry. Without self-discipline, you lower your future well-being and you raise your disease risk — mental and physical.

Without self-discipline, you...

• adopt an irregular, dysfunctional circadian rhythm and eating cycle.

• become addicted to notifications, instant messaging, and social media.

• eat unhealthy, dopamine-rich foods.

• stimulate yourself with entertainment and information constantly.

• chase sexual validation as the sole purpose of existence.

Without self-discipline, you have to avoid certain situations that incentivize shortsighted behaviors. Without self-discipline, you are fragile.