Oh wow, last day of this challenge – not the last day I’m doing cold water though. Forcing myself to be uncomfortable for a few minutes every morning has had a noticeable effect on simply being able to make myself do things.
I came across an idea in my YouTube feed (I haven’t watched it yet) that says discipline is an emotion. It’s a thought I find very intriguing.
As I’ve become more comfortable simply making up mind to do something and then doing it – it does feel like something is shifting internally once I’ve made the decision.
I’ve found that when I don’t make a decision – i.e. I sit around trying to convince myself about something – it feels like a noisy room in my head – there aren’t so many voices, but different types of emotions.
But when I’ve actually made a choice to do something – like get in the shower and be uncomfortable – the noise disappears. It makes me think of the scene from Equilibrium where Christian Bale’s character is hooked up to a lie detector and it’s measuring his emotions. Needles are jostling around and then the lines go flat – and the shit goes down.
For a long time, I’ve thought voluntary hardship is something life changing – focusing primarily on weights and some on marital arts training – but those have never been daily things for me.
Forcing myself to be very uncomfortably cold while still having to get something done (shaving and washing) has definitely changed some internal wiring. No, this isn’t automatically a permanent change, just like any other change – I’ve gotta consciously keep things up otherwise they’ll very easily start to slip by the wayside.
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