How to develop a fluid/flowing/flexible discipline?

[Lento]

This question may sound weird, but I'm asking with all seriousness.

Reality is changing all the time, and at the same time it's just the present moment. Flowing in the present moment is easy, and it doesn't require discipline. Discipline is easy too, since it's a bunch of habits. So, when reality changes but your habits don't, you fall out of flow.

For the most part, discipline seems like a tier one quality, like rigid unconscious discipline without being connected to reality or to what actually needs to be done. What I'm aiming to discuss here is discipline at tier two. How does it look like? How to achieve it? Would it still be discipline if it became flexible? Are flow and discipline opposites? Is discipline even necessary at the highest levels?

Lemme hear your thoughts guys.

Edited January 17, 2020 by Lento

[Forestluv]

What comes to mind for me is effort and conditioning.

56 minutes ago, Lento said:

For the most part, discipline seems like a tier one quality, like rigid unconscious discipline without being connected to reality

To me, this seems like a form of discipline that requires effort. For example, I will eat vegetarian every day, whether I want to or not. Some days, I want to eat meat, yet I will be disciplined and only eat vegetarian. 

59 minutes ago, Lento said:

Discipline is easy too, since it's a bunch of habits.

This seems like an effortless habit. I wouldn't consider this "discipline" since no effort is involved. I have been vegetarian for over 20 years. I don't even think about it. It doesn't even cross my mind to eat meat. There is nothing for me to be "disciplined" about. Sometimes I am out for dinner with a meat-eater and they ask me "How long have you been vegetarian?". When I say "About 20 years" they often reply "Oh my! You are so disciplined!". From their perspective, being vegetarian would require effort and discipline. To me, it's effortless and needs no discipline. I also don't eat car batteries or bird poop. There is no effort or discipline involved. . . I could also ask someone "When was the last time you at liquid baby food?". They may reply "Not since I was about two years old". It would be silly to respond "Wow!! You are so disciplined!"

1 hour ago, Lento said:

So, when reality changes but your habits don't, you fall out of flow.

 I wouldn't call it a shift in discipline, I would call it a shift against prior conditioning which can cause a sense of disruption.

For example, I lived with local families in small villages in Central and South America. Here, "vegetarian" wasn't a thing. There were so few tourists that the locals didn't try to accommodate tourists with vegetarian options. They didn't really get exposed to it. Their culture was very meat-centric. Many families had their own animals they consumed or the animals were in the local neighborhoods. I saw locals killing various animals, such as hogs. . . Meat was part of every dish. At first, I would say that I'm vegetarian and I would politely refrain from eating meat. Yet they didn't "get it" and sometimes they would need to prepare a separate meal. For example, they might be preparing a meat stew and to ask them to prepare a vegetarian option became really awkward. I tried to explain it, yet my Spanish wasn't the best and it was an odd concept to them. They often asked me "why would you eat like that". Speaking about health, ethical or environmental reasons didn't resonate with them. I even tried to say I was allergic to meat, yet that just made things weirder. . . And I noticed this altered the energetics of our meals. There was an odd vibe. . . So I decided when I travel to remote areas in which vegetarianism isn't well-understood and causes tension, I will eat like the locals - which includes meat. This completely changed the collective energy. The weirdness was completely removed when I started eating what was served. . . Yet a new internal weirdness arose. My mind and body had 20 years of vegetarian conditioning. Eating meat with these families "felt" like I was out of flow because it was counter to over 7,000 consecutive days of not eating meat. . . In terms of "prior conditioning flow" it felt out of flow. Yet in terms of "what's happening now flow", there was no disruption. I was aware of both dynamics. . . Yet discipline was a non-factor. It was all about mind-body conditioning. 

[mandyjw]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and am trying to put it in place in my life. I used to work and push myself to do a lot of work that I didn't want to and this is within what was once my absolute "dream job". I thought that the best I could do is feel great about my accomplishments at the end of the day no matter how miserable I made myself during the work.

Now I don't know what the future holds, so I'm more focused on following inspiration. With inspiration comes new direction. The problem is that inspiration leads me to all kinds of wonderful things but it didn't have the same money/material success focus I had before so I'm kind of hoping it will get back around to that subject soon.  It requires a lot of patience and trust and I think it boils down to the ability to follow your intuition, which requires you to be sensitive to it and believe it in the first place. 

I've found in the areas of diet and fitness that it's easy to stay on track because being on track feels great, going off track is also great for a day or two and then immediately feels AWFUL. So I trust myself in those areas for the most part. It's work that I'm still trying to figure out. 

Edited January 17, 2020 by mandyjw

[Lento]

@Serotoninluv

Hmmm, well, in this case, I think it's easy to be aware of both dynamics and to shift from one to another. I understand that the example you provided was for the most part for illustrating the concept of how awareness works, but I think it gets messier and way more complicated than this, especially when your environment is changing all the time. From my experience, I could create a bunch of habits which obviously would be difficult to maintain at first, but then with practice and time they'd become part of my conditioning, so as you hinted, the word discipline would be more appropriate in the beginning, but then when the discipline becomes effortless, we could start calling it a habit or a conditioning, whether conscious or not.

That makes sense.

However, what I'm specifically interested in here is if it's possible to skip the difficult part, and to shift from one effortless habit to another in short amounts of time. That is when you hold many projects simultaneously and try to make them all work together fluidly and effortlessly. Like for example, let's say that I have to live among people who aren't vegetarians, and it's difficult to communicate that concept with them like you illustrated. On the one hand, when I'm on my own, I could discipline myself to become a vegetarian. On the other hand, when I'm with them, I'd need to act like I belong. You can already see how difficult it is to create a habit in this case. Oh, and by the way, for something to become a habit, it has to become somewhat permanent, but what I'm asking about is if it's possible to install habits and remove them selectively, on a daily basis (or even on a real-time basis), without having to worry about maintaining them. Like making my default mode a vegetarian, while at the same time having the luxury of dropping it every single day, without the latter becoming my new habit.

And that's just one habit, think about ten or more habits at once. How is it possible to be that flexible?! I don't know if it sounds bizarre, but if the environment is highly unstable, then how is one going to be able to become disciplined and remain flexible simultaneously. It seems possible theoretically, but I find it really difficult practically. It probably requires having extremely high levels of awareness in every single moment throughout the day.

I hope there will be further discussion. Thank you.

@mandyjw Welcome to the club!

Edited January 18, 2020 by Lento

[Commodent]

13 hours ago, Lento said:

So, when reality changes but your habits don't, you fall out of flow.

By creating habits you direct the flow. You are not just a person responding to external stimuli, you are also the one shaping it. With total adaptability you will be just like a leaf in the wind, always shifting and with no self-agency.

Adapting and organizing is something that needs to be balanced. It's not either/or.

Exerting effort does not make one suffer, and neither does doing what is difficult. What makes one suffer is one's resistance to it. The unwillingness to actually do it. Allowing yourself to exert effort and to do the difficult brings freedom in so many ways. Note that this does not mean you have to act like a tyrant and oppress certain parts of yourself. Be more like the kind leader that sees value in all members of its crew. "To prefer chocolate, one does not have to hate and vilify vanilla."

[Lento]

25 minutes ago, Commodent said:

Adapting and organizing is something that needs to be balanced. It's not either/or.

Thank you! I agree with everything you said. And I think you've captured the essence of that balance very well with the duality adapting vs. organising.

Still, I'm a bit vague or unsure about how to go about this. How to create that balance and maintain it? This is very critical for me because my environment is highly unstable and changing very quickly, sometimes even drastically. This problem makes it difficult, and rather pointless for me to create habits because then I will need to drop them and replace them with something else every now and then. I keep coming to the conclusion that I need to become more aware, both in quality and quantity. What do you think?