What Did I Learn This Week: Punishment and Discipline are not the same thing
Live fast, die young, bad girls do it well!
Excuse me, but I was on vacation! It’s where I’ve been all summer long. It’s this new resort that I know pretty well but hasn’t made its way to the cultural forefront yet. It’s called In My Head!
I don’t think I have ever actually executed discipline but I do know how to do punishment. Punishment is kinda easy, especially if you feel like you’re a bad person for no real reason, this will come second nature! For example, say you’re an actor and need to do a simple two page self tape request for a film. This discipline version of this probably looks like you taking in the script several times as soon as you get the tape request, going through and examining the characters, who says what, where they are, who they are to each other, what they need from each other, etc. The punishment version is you wait until the last minute because you convince yourself you’ll be fine (you went to school for this, c’mon) with the least amount of time, then during the tape stumble over the lines, start getting mad at yourself because you somehow did this to yourself again, and then you’re now mad at your sweet boyfriend who became your reader since you waited until the night before the tape is due to start work on this because what’s the point of properly dedicating time to doing this audition since you’re probably not even going to book this again anyway you’ve only booked two things this year and you’re not even that good pretty hot or talented so why do we keep doing this like literally why am I still doing this to myself I could’ve picked a thousand different careers moves and I chose this because I somehow love this but not this no one ever picks me for anything and somehow I feel like I’m in elementary school again and no one wants to play dodgeball with me. Wee!
So yeah, I’ve been trying to do more Discipline. I have spent my whole adult life in therapy and countless hours in and outside of it trying to see if there’s possibly anything I feel as strongly about in my life that makes me wake up with this same desire and unfortunately I have not found anything nearly as emotional and joyful for myself and the only thing that is close is loving others and desserts. My battle with discipline ties with this belief that the closer I get to what I want something will be taken away from me. In my mind, this is manifested when I do good work, then go through a whole callback process to then not book something. Like, why did I waste my time dedicating an emotional investment to something for it to not work out? Maybe this is a slight fear of intimacy, to get so close and invested to what I want to then have it taken away. So instead of feeling the emotional investment that discipline instills I choose to punish myself beforehand to almost save myself the time from feeling loss later. Almost self-care but just self-sabotage.
Last Sunday I had a tape that was due on Monday night, but some of my friends invited me last minute to the beach. My first thought was “No, y’all should go ahead without me, I need all day to work on this,” which is me punishing myself by making myself retreat from any social outings to make myself work all day on something that doesn’t require THAT much work (sneaky!). Instead I decided to wake up early, work on the two pages of sides I had with the proper questions in mind, then I went to the beach. Later I came home at 6pm and recorded them after dinner. I think that is discipline, or a way I want to have discipline in my life. Additionally, my creative cup has felt pretty dry these past few weeks which doesn’t help with these extremes I end up in. I’m in an emotional business! Time to fill up!
A Very Relevant Clip That I Have Said Out Loud to Myself Every Day This Week