Merits of A Disciplined Mind

In my primary and secondary school days (from the ages of six to sixteen), irate teachers would banish me from their lessons because I was disruptive and failed to submit my homework on time. I hated having to sit upright and pay attention in class because it deprived me of the freedom to daydream or do the things I really wanted to – like vandalize the classroom tables with lewd cartoons, jerk my knees as quickly as humanly possible or put glue on my forearm and wait for it to dry, then peel it off. “Unruly”, “does not apply herself” and “undisciplined” were words that showed up on my report card every year. But when I look back at how my days were arranged as a youngster, I can see why the idea of discipline was repugnant to me back then. 

From Mondays to Fridays, I would wake up at 6am in order to make it to the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus in time for a daily flag raising ceremony at 7am. Everyday, I wore a uniform– starched white coloured blouse under a pleated dark blue pinafold and lace-up canvas shoes. I had to pin on a badge with the school emblem on the top of my pinafold, near by heart. I would stand in a field with about 300 other young girls and we would sing the national anthem, while the school prefect hoisted the Singapore flag up a pole. Then with our fist over our hearts, we would recite the national pledge. For five days a week, I was trapped in this house of nymphets and penguins from 7am to 1pm. Three days a week, I would have religious education, which would always end with the Lord’s Prayer, a Hail Mary, a Glory Be and a hymn to Father Barre, the founder of the order of the Holy Infant Jesus Sisters.

When school ended, my mother would pick me up in her car and ferry me to piano classes, Chinese language tuition, math tuition, art classes, guitar lessons or Taikwondo session, and when I finally got home, there would be plenty of homework to do. I would go to sleep, and in the morning I would be back in the blue and white garb, standing on the green field again. On Saturdays, I had to go to church for catechism classes. After hearing more about the Virgin Mary and the carpenter, I would come home for a few hours then it would be time to go for sunset mass with my family before proceeding to spend time with relatives or my parent’s friends whose company I didn’t care too much for. On Sundays I had to learn how to ride a bicycle, swim laps, or play tennis, none of which I found pleasant, but my parents thought that these were skills a well-rounded individual should acquire.

Did I benefit at all from having my days filled with supposedly “life-enhancing” activities conducive to the proper development of a young lady? Yes and no. This rigid lifestyle that came with corporeal punishment and restriction on my personal freedoms upon non-compliance made me rebel with the utmost ferocity.

From the age of seventeen to twenty four, I decided to re-educate myself, and I did this by getting drunk, taking lots of drugs, having plenty of meaningless sex, stealing, overeating, indulging in harmful vices, staying up all night, sleeping in all day, disregarding rules, regulations and civilities and living life with enough wanton abandon to have the Infant Jesus nuns dispatching an exorcism warrant.

Today, I realize that it is a combination of regiment and chaos that makes for a good and voluptuous life. To understand the human heart and to live deeply, I needed to experience uncertainly and disorder, but to still my mind sufficiently so I could access its strengths, I needed to learn to delay gratification and sometimes deprive myself of pleasure for a period of time. In that place between regiment and chaos, between doing the things I don’t want to and doing whatever the hell I feel like, I have found the key to living exuberantly and waltzing with my very own soul.

After taking a jaunt into the village of hedonism and despair, I took the first step in rendering myself open to structure again when I decided that I liked writing enough to want to get paid to do it regularly and well. I signed up for a journalism degree at a university in London that required the submission of a 3,500 word essay every week on subjects like the Bolshevik revolution, the Dreyfuss affair, the penny press, WT Stead, the troubles of Northern Ireland and on and on. Having to read six or more textbooks and photocopies of old newspaper cuttings, digest all this new information, then come up with my own opinion on them within a short time required a heightened level of concentration and diligence.

The act of absorbing, analyzing and synthesizing new information, then expressing my point of view in a succinct manner with references, quotes and appendixes took immense single-minded focus. The complexity of the task required sitting at my desk for hours on end, ingesting volumes of tedious texts, making notes on study cards and pinning them up on a corkboard so I could develop a coherent train of thought with regards to my reaction to the historical event I was learning about. When I was done for the day, my eyes would be blurry and my breath hot from sitting down for too long, and I would feel as if I were in a daze. Sometimes, I would get anxious about speaking with my flat mates or shopkeepers because I had been silent and alone for so long. But over time, these intense bouts of learning sharpened my mind, giving it a newfound precision that allowed me to accomplish once daunting tasks – like doing the laundry or making my bed, with much greater speed and ease. Perhaps I was finally “applying myself”.

For the first time in my life, I was able to sustain these trance-like states of steady focus and my efforts paid off with a magna cum laude and an elected role as the chief editor of the school’s weekly newspaper. At the end of my three years in London, discipline gave me a bonus prize. I wrote a book, albeit an amateurish one, that got published just before I left the city and could finally call myself a writer.

I returned to Singapore and was offered a job as the editor of a monthly city guide. Here, I learned about the rigours of having to dress up, show up and interact with other human beings whether I was in the mood for it or not and whether I liked them or not. Putting on my “game face” and “talking shop” required forbearance, graciousness and effervescence – virtues that again, require a certain amount of discipline to exercise, especially for one like myself who is not gregarious by nature. After giving the magazine two years of slog, I started my own freelance writing business. This endeavor taught me how to structure and use my time wisely, how to confidently approach new prospects and how to write consistently and hopefully with increasing skill. Working for myself suits me a heck of a lot better than being on a company payroll because of the simple and selfish reason that my time is my own and what is mine is infinitely more precious than what belongs to the firm or the public. The only form of discipline that seems to work for me is self-discipline. But to learn the art of self-discipline, I had first to submit to the authority and instructions of others as I did as a young-un.

Fortunately, now, I have no interest in tabletop graffiti or peeling dried glue off my forearm. The dictionary describes the meaning of discipline as “training to act in accordance with rules,” or “activity, exercise, or a regimen that develops or improves a skill”. I once heard in a creative writing class I attended that if we want to break the rules, we need first to learn them by heart. So I am thankful that I had order and industry drilled into me in my formative years. Were that not the case, I don’t think I would have managed to survive the diabolical realms of hedonism, insanity, anarchy and art, as I have. I have discovered that I can sit still after all. For the first time in my life, my mind has the peace and calm it needs to move me towards my destiny. Today, armed with techniques in studiousness, meticulousness and asceticism, as well as an aptitude for unabashed emotional and intellectual barbarism, I am able to do life at a level that makes my soul sing. I relish life. I live, I love, I write, I feast, I jest, I rest, I bellow…and I do all these things and more exactly how I want to do them…most of the time.

Here’s a list of activities and attitudes that I have found helpful in cultivating discipline.

1) Don’t think about the next task that needs to be done. Bring your mind gently back to the task at hand. Thinking of everything else that needs to be done only creates panic, which slows you down.

2) Meditate. I usually set a stopwatch for 10 minutes while I sit in lotus position and breathe. I use mantras to help my mind stay focused. My mantra of the week is: “Be still, (inhale) my soul (exhale).”

3) Read a novel. The process of having to absorb ideas produced by another human being, to listen to voice other than your own, and to follow their train of thought from start to finish requires much more attention and determination than watching television or looking at pictures in magazines. Making sense of words, numbers and learning new tasks or languages improves brain function, so I try always to nourish my mind with useful, worthwhile or beautiful information, which will hopefully solidify into a skill set, a source of inspiration or knowledge in the bank.

4) Exercise first thing in the morning. I’ve found that doing daily physical activities like martial arts, qigong or yoga – exercises that involve remembering sequences of movement, helps whip my mind into obedience. By sticking with a morning exercise routine, I not only get more oxygen into my blood and brain, I also teach my brain to follow rhythms, spot patterns and stay on the course I’ve plotted for the day ahead.

5) Communicate with a stranger. Picking up the phone and calling an acquaintance I don’t know very well for a chat, or approaching a new business prospect on the phone or in person is something that might seem challenging. But connecting with someone new pushes me out of my social comfort zone and I learn that I can expand my presence and effectiveness in the world, one person and one project at a time. 

Copyright February 2012, Michele Koh Morollo