Discipline and Flexibility

I have been very aware lately of my lack of and need for discipline.  I've allowed things to more or less "happen as they happen" or something like that.  That is, we have family prayer every morning and night, and we read scriptures as a family each day.  We get the kids to school on time, with breakfast in their bellies and lunch in their backpacks, and we go to church every Sunday and have family home evening every week--but everything feels rote.  We are going through the motions but lacking discipline, lacking purpose and therefore not making progress as a family.

Undoubtedly this is (at least in part) due to my sort of falling apart last year.  I let a lot of things "go" as I struggled along, and though what "went" wasn't the things in and of themselves, it was certainly the vitality behind those things.  We are like a limp fish and a wilting plant.

Ethan has been struggling in school.  He has a hard time staying focused and on-task, keeping track of his things, and following through.  He has recently incurred the wrath of his teacher by failing to turn things in, or even be able to locate them, and by complaining about assignments.  At home, I tried to tutor him through keeping track of this things, having a place for them and not losing them.  I tried to tell him that he needed to create order, even as we sorted through 6-inch high piles of my own papers which are in a state of udder chaos. Children learn by example, and I have not been an example of discipline lately.  

That I need to discipline myself is clear. (This discipline meaning: to bring to a state of order and obedience by training and control.) How/what exactly to do is something I am pondering on, especially as I am trying at the same time to be flexible with myself and others, and realistic in the understanding that life with young children is hard to predict, so adaptability is essential.  How can I be both disciplined and flexible? How can I breath life and purpose into my own actions and my family once again?

I decided that "A disciple has discipline" (and the devil's in distraction.)  If I want to be a true disciple of Christ and teach my children to be, too, I need to create discipline in my own life and then model and teach it in theirs.  I also need to stop allowing the distractions (all the other things that pull me away from what is most important) to erode that discipline.  I need to fear God more than man and choose the right, even when it is inconvenient, or I'm tired, or I just feel like doing something else.  I need to gird up my loins and exert self-control.  And be flexible at the same time.

As I started my fast last night and prayed for insight and help in my attempt to gain discipline, I thought about having our family get up at 6 am for family scripture, instead of doing it before bed.  I thought how that might help the kids be more awake when they need to get dressed, make their beds and lunches and get ready for school starting at 6:30am.  (I think it is a little obscene to have school start at 7:30 am for such  young children.)  And then I thought about the fact that Isaac is still frequently ill, and I seldom get to bed before 10:30, and am often up several times with him, and so a 6am morning would leave me exhausted and grumpy.  Also, as the kids showed me by sleeping in past 8:20 this morning (they would have slept longer but church is at 9am so I woke them), they need more sleep than they are getting, too.  Sleep is precious; I hate to interrupt it.

Perhaps discipline does not need to entail when things are done so much as how they are done.  It is more important for me to study the scriptures with real intent than to do it at any particular time of day, I believe.  (Though my day certainly goes better when it is my first priority of the morning.)  Perhaps for things like organizing my house, it is less important how it is done than that it is done.  Of course, for things like getting to school, the when is more important that the how, perhaps.    Am I getting anywhere with this?  What does it mean to be disciplined, anyway?  

Clay Christiansen learned that it is easier to obey the rules 100% of the time than 99% of the time, because if you aren't 100% committed, there will always be reasons/excuses to be "flexible," which means there will be many times you won't follow the rule.  That is the kind of flexibility that I don't want to have, but have given myself this last year, I think.  Perhaps discipline is more about choosing what is most important--the commandments and doctrines, etc--and training yourself to obey, to do, even when it is not convenient or easy.  That allows for flexibility, I think because it is seldom the things that are most important to me that are time-bound.  I want to get dinner on at a certain time, and I can work towards that, but if I need to spend time with a child, or something that is a higher priority, it might be more disciplined to let go of dinner for a while and do what is more important.

Of course, things like creating order are important, and aren't time-bound, which means that they get put off and put off, and I end up with 6 inch tall piles of papers which swallow things.  In that case, disciplining myself might mean making time to do it.  It is much more fun to check gmail or facebook, but those are far lower priorities.  Discipline means doing what needs to be done, even when I don't feel like it.  It means making time for things that I don't enjoy because they are important, perhaps.  It means doing the right thing even when it is emotionally unattractive and not allowing distraction to veer me off course.  In some cases, what I need most is some R and R.  Then, the cleaning becomes a distraction.   Surely a body would need a highly complex brain and the gift of the Holy Ghost to do all this right.