Yes. Discipline is purposeful pain seeking. Procrastination is pain avoidance. Accepting that pain is inevitable is not easy, and it gets harder in an environment that caters to comfort.
Surprisingly, I have done my best work when depressed: I knew I would be in pain whether I was procrastinating or not, so I sought the fleeting euphoria one gets when a task is completed.
When I'm on antidepressants, I feel almost no emotional pain, and I avoid tasks that can be painful, which means I don't achieve much. I just want to continue feeling no pain.
I wish that had been the case for me. Anxiety and depression go hand in hand with me, so being apathetic and procrastinating via escapism (games and fiction books) were my only solace. As you can imagine, that spiraled out of control rather quickly.
It took finally accepting that I needed structure to start turning things around (along with medicine). I can hold the anxiety and depression at bay if I don't procrastinate, but I suspect it will forever be a temptation to take the easy way out when I get stressed about anything.
Short term pleasure is easy to come by, but discipline is thev only path to contentment, joy and peace for me.
> Yes. Discipline is purposeful pain seeking. Procrastination is pain avoidance.
? I'm not sure I can ever agree to that. Discipline is more about having commitment to a thing.
It's not about grasping nettles each day until you develop a callus, it's about doing something you have some interest in some way until you get better at it.
No professional sports player ends up professional in the field because they hate sports. No professional musician ends up that good and trained because they hate music. No scientist ends up good at their job because they hate it.
It's not about seeking pain, if you've convinced yourself it is you will likely burn out as you're not following something you actually enjoy or have an interest in. You may have found disciplin in that, but frankly it will just be 'disciplin to embrase pain' which may be another skill in and of itself.
Don't get me wrong, loving science doesn't prepare you for the hours you will spend getting your head around the maths that underpin it. No love of sports will prepare you for waking up with your muscles exhausted. No love of music will prepare you for freaking out when you can't get that the right notes or timing on a piece after days of effort.
These are not the things you're developing a disciplin in. And imo is dangerous to mistake the fact that tou are. You're developing a disciplin in the topics you enjoy and discovering the real world (unfortunately) isn't all about disney musicals. (Which if you assume it is, sorry buddy, you're not going to be randomly selected to join NASA to go to the moon tomorrow, you're not a trained test pilot/astronaught)
I havent thought about it much before. But the part about being your most productive and doing the best work when depressed is a bit too relatable. I can confidently say my productivity and quality of output just shined their brightest in the few lowest points i had.
Surprisingly, I have done my best work when depressed: I knew I would be in pain whether I was procrastinating or not, so I sought the fleeting euphoria one gets when a task is completed.
When I'm on antidepressants, I feel almost no emotional pain, and I avoid tasks that can be painful, which means I don't achieve much. I just want to continue feeling no pain.