Way of the Warrior Kid

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

My morning alarm clock blasted in my ears. I listened to it for a few seconds. Then I reached over and hit the snooze button. That felt soooooo good. I just didn’t feel like getting up. I wanted to sleeeeeeep.… I closed my eyes and comfortably faded back into a deep sleep.…

In the distance, I heard the door open. Just as it registered in my groggy brain that it had to be Uncle Jake, I heard him say, “Marc?” Before I could answer him, the noise hit me like a freight train: CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! It was the garbage can and the broomstick again.

“Okay. Okay. I’ll get up,” I told Uncle Jake. I must not have sounded very enthusiastic, because Uncle Jake called me out.

“What’s wrong with you, Marc? Why weren’t you down in the garage this morning for your workout?”

“Well…” I didn’t know what to say.

“‘Well’ what?” Uncle Jake asked me.

“Well, I don’t know,” I told him. “I just … I’m just … I’m tired.”

“Tired? What does tired have to do with anything?”

“Well. You know. I’m tired. I worked out all last week. I did jiu-jitsu classes. Plus, we went to the river. With so much stuff going on, I’m just tired. I think I need some rest.”

“If you need rest, you go to sleep earlier. You don’t sleep in, and you don’t miss workouts. Even if you can’t perform at a high level, showing up and doing something is still a thousand times better than not showing up at all.”

“Well, it’s not just that,” I admitted. “This program is taking up all my time. I’m getting tired of doing so much. Maybe I could just get the chance to relax and watch some TV sometime. I could use a little freedom to do what I want.”

My argument seemed to make sense in my head. Shouldn’t I relax a little bit? A little TV can’t be that bad, right? I just wanted a little freedom.

Uncle Jake sat and looked at me. He wasn’t mad. But his face looked like he almost felt sorry for me. Like I didn’t know anything about anything.

“We all want freedom, Marc. All of us. That is what I want in my life. That is what my friends and I fought for overseas. Freedom is the best thing in the world. But freedom isn’t free. If you want true freedom in life, you have to have discipline. Do you know what discipline is, Marc?”

I wasn’t 100 percent sure, but I thought I had an idea. “Doesn’t discipline mean you follow the rules?” I said.

“That’s one kind of discipline,” Uncle Jake said, “but it isn’t as simple as just following the rules people give you. The most important part of discipline is following rules that you set for yourself. It is doing things you might not always feel like doing—things that make you better.” Then Uncle Jake started getting really intense. “Listen, if you want freedom from being bullied at school by Kenny, you have to have the discipline to go to jiu-jitsu class and learn the skills to defeat him. If you want freedom from ridicule when you do pull-ups at school, you have to have the discipline to train so that you can do pull-ups.

“If you want the freedom to swim in the water and enjoy your school trip, you need the discipline to overcome your fear of the water and learn how to swim. What about school? Do you want to be free of being stumped on tests and not knowing the answer to questions in class? Then you need the discipline to study and learn the material they teach you. When you get older, you are going to want financial freedom—that means having enough money to do what you want without worrying about it. The only way you are going to get financial freedom is by having financial discipline—by saving money and not wasting it on things you don’t need. And all that discipline starts with getting up early in the morning.”

“Well, I’m up now,” I told Uncle Jake.

“I know you are,” he replied. “But you are only up because I woke you up. I made you get up. That’s called ‘imposed discipline’—when someone else makes you do what they want you to do. What you need is called SELF-DISCIPLINE. That is when you take control of yourself. When you push yourself. When you make yourself do the hard things. That is what gives you freedom. Does that make sense to you?”

“I think it does,” I told Uncle Jake.

“You need to do better than think it does. You need to understand. Explain to me what you think self-discipline means.”

I was nervous because I wasn’t 100 percent sure I understood. But it did make sense to me, so I figured I would give it a try. And it’s not like I had much of a choice anyway, with Uncle Jake staring at me, waiting for an answer.

“I think it means this, Uncle Jake,” I told him. “We all want freedom in life. We want to be able to do what we want. We want to live free. But in order to get freedom, we have to work for it. Work hard. We have to earn that freedom. Freedom requires discipline. So even though sometimes discipline seems like it is trapping you and making you do things that you don’t want to do, discipline is the thing that will set you free. Discipline equals freedom.”

“That’s right, Marc. Perfect. Discipline equals freedom. So let’s get up and get to work!”

“Is that what keeps you motivated, Uncle Jake?” I asked, wondering how he stays so fired up all the time.

“Motivated?” Uncle Jake replied. “I don’t worry about motivation, because motivation comes and goes. It’s just a feeling. You might feel motivated to do something, and you might not. The thing that keeps you on course and keeps you on the warrior path isn’t motivation. It is discipline. Discipline gets you out of bed. Discipline gets you onto the pull-up bar. Discipline gets you to grind it out in jiu-jitsu class. If you do those things only when you are motivated to do them, you might do them only fifty percent of the time. Sure, it’s nice when motivation is there, but you can’t count on motivation. You have to rely on the personal discipline you develop. Like you said: Discipline equals freedom. Got it?”

“Yes, Uncle Jake, I do.”

“Good. Then let’s go down to the garage and get busy.”

And we did just that!