Dare to…

I say, “Dare to Discipline”. Dare to take your body, mind and soul, and discipline them to achieve a new excellence within yourself. Dare to set goals beyond your hopes and imaginations. Dare to run the extra distance, lift the extra repetition, ride the added miles, swim the extra laps. Dare to keep it up until you reach a personal excellence. Dare to reach beyond your coach, therapist, trainers and peers. How dare anyone limit you!

I would dare you to discipline your mind and completely absorb a liberal arts education in a college or university. I dare you to understand our western thought of pro and con, plus and minus, cause and effect, and formal logic and dialectic as we have inherited it from the Mesopotamians, Egyptians and Greeks. l dare you to understand Eastern thinking of circular relational approaches, dare you to compare these and then pick a lifestyle of thinking and working within the pragmatic world that combines both worlds of thought. I would dare you to discipline yourself in an understanding of ancient Greek literature and in Shakespeare, and see how those thoughts and actions are still with us every day.

I would dare you to discipline yourself in the religions of this world. I would dare you to read, ask, inquire and study all forms of spiritual expression that humans have devised. I dare you to withhold making decisions about any of these until you have exhausted your search.

In summary, I dare you to discipline yourself to an open-ended search for excellence within yourself. I have known athletes (ironmen), scientists and engineers (rocket scientists), musicians (Bach to Bluegrass) and Holy men and women (all faiths) who dared to discipline themselves and found the real joy and sense of accomplishment which comes only from within. I dare you to come to the point of realizing that discipline creates freedom — the freedom to live your own peace, joy and sense of accomplishment!