Discipline!

Another admirable human trait that has gone the way of the Dodo. It certainly disappeared from my life early on—if it was ever there to begin with. If I had to pick the number one thing that has gotten in the way of my goals, I’d say it’s the lack of discipline. For me, it hasn’t been a total lack, but it’s right up there at the top of the list.

So, exactly what is discipline? A simplistic way to define it would be this: practicing discipline means consistently doing something that doesn’t bring immediate pleasure, but in the end delivers the goals you actually want. And here comes instant gratification again—that evil little trickster that seems to be Public Enemy Number One these days.

I’m sure you’re all familiar with the marshmallow experiment. Conducted in the late 1960s and early 1970s by psychologist Walter Mischel at Stanford University, it tested delayed gratification in preschool-aged children. A kid was left alone in a room with one marshmallow (or sometimes a cookie or pretzel). They could eat it right away, or wait 15–20 minutes for the researcher to return and get two marshmallows instead. Some kids ate it immediately. Others distracted themselves, covered their eyes, or sang songs to resist.

Follow-up studies over decades showed that the children who waited longer tended to have better life outcomes: higher SAT scores, better educational attainment, lower BMI, and fewer issues with impulsivity or addiction later on. It wasn’t perfect science—later replications questioned how strongly it predicted success—but the core idea holds: the ability to resist immediate temptation for a bigger future reward matters.

The important thing to note is that this was done with children. As adults, we’re supposed to know better—wait, be patient, stay disciplined, and reap greater rewards. Ha ha. I’m sure when I was a kid, I would’ve scarfed the first marshmallow, and now, if they replaced it with cookies, I’d do the exact same thing.

I don’t know if this is even the best example of discipline. It ties in closely, but it’s more about holding off for something better in a one-off situation. Discipline is really about continuous behavior: going to the gym regularly, saving money over time, sticking to a diet to lose weight. Sure, it isn’t completely gone from the culture—I know plenty of people who are very disciplined about working out (that one seems to be the most common example left standing).

Let’s take saving money as a counter-example. Many years ago, there was no such thing as easy “credit.” Department stores pioneered the layaway system: you’d pick out an item, the store would set it aside, and you’d pay for it in installments until it was yours. No debt, just patient saving. Then came installment plans for big purchases like cars, followed by revolving credit accounts in the 1930s–1950s. Credit cards exploded in the 1950s and 1960s (think BankAmericard, later Visa), and 30-year mortgages became the norm, turning homeownership into a lifelong debt arrangement rather than something you saved up for.

Now we live in a world of debt. Debt is taken for granted—everyone’s got it. Just like everyone used to have fleas, now everyone’s got debt. As of recent 2025–2026 data, total U.S. household debt sits around $18.5 trillion. Credit card debt alone exceeds $1.2 trillion, with average balances per cardholder hovering around $5,600–$7,900 depending on the source. The average American with a credit score carries roughly $63,000 in total debt. Mortgages dominate, but consumer debt keeps climbing. We’ve normalized living beyond our means.

This erosion of discipline isn’t just financial. It’s everywhere. We want the six-pack abs without the daily gym grind, the viral Substack success without writing consistently for years, the deep knowledge without the slow, often boring study. Instant gratification culture—fueled by apps, dopamine hits from likes, same-day delivery, and “buy now, pay later”—has us all hooked.

Of course, I see this as part of the bigger picture. Most people seem to follow the path of least resistance because it feels easier, safer, more “normal.” The powers that be love a population chasing quick fixes; it keeps us distracted, indebted, and compliant. Real discipline requires discomfort, delayed reward, and a long view—exactly what the modern world tries to train out of us.

You know me, I am always going to point to the agenda. But this sort of erosion could be natural and only supported by the agenda, like a lot of other things that seem to be going on. The loss of discipline is due to deeper and broader strokes: the loss of self-respect, the loss of meaning and purpose, the focus on consumerism, the focus on materiality, the focus on instant gratification, the focus on safety and the fear of death. I could go on and on, as I have in the hundreds of articles I’ve written so far.

All of this is reversible, of course, but because we are being pushed by external forces to embrace these dysfunctional tendencies, it is and will continue to be very difficult to overcome. I have no direct solutions other than what I always say is best: a return to basics. We need to push away odur obsession with materialism and embrace a more metaphysical worldview of love, peace, family, and nature. We need to develop our desire to find meaning and purpose in our lives—to embrace art and creativity and even more intellectual pursuits. And most importantly, we must again learn that instant gratification and the senseless pursuit of physical comfort should not be at the top of our list of priorities.

Me? I am beginning to get the spiritual and intellectual part down, but I’m still working on the physical discipline. Some days I win the marshmallow battle. Other days I eat the whole bag. But at least I’m aware of the game. That’s half the fight, right? Ha! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a gym membership I should probably use . . . tomorrow.