Courage Before Discipline
As I described in my previous post, I find myself emerging from a personal crisis – a journey into Joseph Campbell's "Belly of the Beast." In that post I also described how a trip to Virginia – where my wife, Trudy, and I got to hang out with our son, Nathan, and his wife, Malvina – seemed to prompt my return to the "Ordinary World" (see https://www.jcf.org/learn/joseph-campbell-heros-journey). My "Elixir" was (is) a renewed sense of purpose, or, as I am going to frame it in this post, a renewed sense of discipline.
Now, you might be asking yourself at this point, "Cross, I thought this blog was about Solving for Pattern, not your personal challenges and struggles." To this question, which is a good one, I would reply: Solving for Pattern, as described in the first five posts of this blog, is a process, and it is a process that can be applied to a wide range contexts, including dairy farms, juvenile detention centers, families, and personal productivity. For now, I wish to focus on personal productivity, but will return to organizational contexts in later posts.
By the time Trudy and returned home, I had framed my personal challenge as one of discipline, and I decided to read Ryan Holiday's book, Discipline is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control (Penguin, 2022). Holiday's book is part of a four-volume set focusing on what the Stoic philosophers considered the four "Cardinal Virtues:"
- Courage (bravery, fortitude, honor, sacrifice);
- Temperance (self-control, moderation, composure, balance);
- Justice (fairness, service, fellowship, goodness, kindness);
- Wisdom (knowledge, education, truth, self-reflection, peace).
The book that I had picked out as a source of guidance, Discipline is Destiny, was the second book in the series. But what about courage? This got me thinking, and I was uncomfortable with the direction these thoughts were taking me. I was uncomfortable because I was having to face the fact that many, if not most, of my failures at self-discipline or self-control stemmed from fear – typically fear of failure, or fear of commitment. So I decided I better dig into the first book in this set, Courage is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave (Penguin, 2021), before digging into the second.
There are three parts to Ryan Holiday's book, Courage is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave:
- Part I: Fear
- Part II: Courage
- Part III: The Heroic
I will explore each of these in the next three posts, in each case weaving together Holiday's thoughts, with some thoughts about my own journey, TBRI, and Solving for Pattern. However, before closing out this post, I would like to pose a few questions for you to think about:
- For those of you who are familiar with the TBRI story, What was the role of fear and courage in Karyn Purvis's creation of what we now call TBRI, the creation of which was itself a process of solving for pattern?
- Based on Wendell Berry's essay, "Solving for Pattern," What was the role of fear and courage in Earl Spencer's transformation of his dairy farm? Or even Wendell Berry's own journey as an advocate for an organic or relational mindset as opposed to an industrial mindset (see https://berrycenter.org)?
- Based on my essays and blog posts, What was the role of fear and courage during the implementation of TBRI at Williamson County Juvenile Justice, by Matt Smith and his staff?
- For those of you who have attended TBRI Practitioner Training (see https://child.tcu.edu), and participated in the Adult Attachment Interview (see https://mainattachment.org), What is the role of fear and courage in the personal journey of becoming an effective and mindful practitioner?
- Finally, how does a consideration of fear and courage contribute to our understanding of Solving for Pattern, as a process?