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So, I started off with the generality that I was pretty enlightened, from all my study and writing. But then I remembered that a particular way of being would always manifest itself in results. I was getting some, at times pretty good, but it was sporadic with alot of sidetrips and even the belief that "comfort" was what I was seeking.
Well, since I saw that I needed self-control to be fully enlightened (or at least "effectivity" enlightened, I then began to use this opportunity to become truly enlightened. And like most changing of habits, I had lots of not-dos (i.e. failures, mistakes). And I saw that I must have my beliefs around what works made much clearer so that I could choose in the moment. Also, I saw that I needed to remind myself to make my decisions from my "Higher Self", so I asked, naturally, "what would my Higher Self choose?" (more and more as I got better and better at it).
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It is only through self-control that we control our selves in a way that will cause ourselves to create all we want. It's a mathematical reality. Almost a self definition.
Yet many people think "self-control" is hard or even non-doable for them.
However, it is something we can "easily" develop, just as we develop other abilities, a bit at a time, after deciding that it is worthwhile to develop. It is not unlike learning to walk - and even more valuable. With self control we can get anything we want and stop anything we don't want.
And, yes, it will be gradual, but you'll reap the benefits as you go, benefits worth far more than the "costs" of self-control.
Of course, the alternative is an enticing one: to go into victim mode and hope for rescue or hope for the right circumstances or that people will approve of you so that you'll be ok.
But I wouldn't recommend that, as it is like waiting for a street car where you live - there ain't gonna be nothing that will get you to where you want to go (the Victim Road never goes anywhere productive).
So, there I was, floating along in retirement, able to do anything I wanted, whenever I wanted to, able to indulge myself any time I wanted to, letting each whim be entertained and probably filled.
So, I found myself going way off the direction I wanted. I even indulged in an "addiction" - a short cut to not thinking, a way of relieving myself from any so-called "stressful" thoughts. I forgot that a stressful thought is just a recording popped up into the brain and one I need not heed and that I could just create another healthy thought or even rest to regain a high state of resourcefulness.
My addiction was one I could play all night, with sufficient "flow" (obliviousness and no thought or concern, with adequate mental stimulus) to keep me interested. All night! Imagine the waste! Even though I could say it was my prerogative to spend it that way. But the result was that I lost the time that I could do other things and then the tiredness threw me off the next day into more goofiness and less effectiveness and certainly less enjoyment. (I'll probably write something about Spider Solitaire and the process involved with freeing up from that, but for now it is just mentioned in The 100% Commitment.)
So, to make a long story short, I needed to get back to controlling my actions rather than letting my feelings (or seeking of comfort) rule.
I decided that I would "be" a person of self-control. So from that way of being, I could see that I should
1. Pickup anything that was lying around. (Stuff disappeared dramatically and everything seemed so spacious and nice, a good reminder of my power.)
2. Finish what I am doing at the time (especially if it could be done in a few minutes - which I found was very often the case). (Projects sitting around forever rapidly were erased from the to do list, as completed! Actually kind of exciting! Also, nothing was left around after I used it, as I simply "completed" the whole process from using it to putting it away.)
3. Instead of going with my whims, run a pre-thought out and pre-decided list of things to do - and then do them in that exact order, which helped me to do things I didn't necessarily "want" to do - interestingly they seemed easy enough to do. I also proceeded even if I didn't feel like doing it then, even if I was tired, I just kept going and finished it.
4. I kept to the discipline of noting everything down and staying organized and on top of things - in control, so to speak, of the situation and my life, because I was controlling myself to be in control of that... (I no longer had to go through the frustration of wondering if I forget something and/or suddenly realizing I goofed on followup.)
This freed up huge piles of undones plus no longer taking up attention units (or concern units) plus I didn't have to go through the inevitable recordings that my primitive brain would pop up about being lazy, undiscipline, not a winner, etc., so I didn't have to spend energy creating a positive offset!
The practice of using self-control helped me build a bigger muscle. And a bigger muscle in this area is what is the source of successful people being successful in life!
It helped me see that I could be as successful and as strong as anyone, taking a back seat to no one, not feeling any "less than". I see that self-control is definitely a requisite for having high self esteem on a sound basis - that affirmations don't produce self-esteem per se - plus I could see that there is no magical way to self-esteem - it takes actual performance, so one has confidence that one can pull through no matter what happens, as discussed in Fearlessness and in Undesired Outcomes, where they ALL can be handled no matter what.
Self-control is, indeed, a necessary building block for constructing a self that is powerful and feels good about its own selfhood, which is "self esteem" in fact.
I recommend that you begin to hold yourself to self control and to stop letting emotions and comfort be the rulers. You know what is right to do. You have the power to direct yourself to do it. Now is the time for you to start exercising that muscle and to build it into an easy, automatic habit, one that makes your life considerably easier and considerably more productive, and considerably more happy.
What it came down to for me is that if I wanted to make a quantum leap greater amount of progress in completing what I wanted to for my mission, I needed to rise to a higher level of self-control. And that is a wonderfully great valuable benefit to me, worth far more than self-indulgence (which has a false payoff and is a bit of a "racket" perpetrated on oneself, at great psychological cost).
For now, read also Self-determination, which is the essence of what we can do in life to create whatever life we want..
