World renowned ex-psychoanalyst Alice Miller says about discipline: "Children, who have been disciplined only learn to discipline others..."
Self-discipline we learn from our own experiences and from having had the freedom to make our own mistakes and the freedom to experience success -- no one can teach discipline to others by disciplining because it is a business for the soul and not the brain.
A remarkable number of people have developed resistance to order and self-control, most likely from having been discplined from young age where the exercise in creating order was not for the benefit of their own well-being and pleasure but primarily for someone else's idea of order and interest to control. This way individuals do not experience satisfaction from order as a simplification and clarification but will forever associate it with the repulsion of being or having been controlled by others.
...or we may have internalized the procedures but without getting the satisfaction of being the creators or at least co-creating order for our own pleasure.
This is the definition of discipline according to the American Heritage Dictionary (all very unlikely to produce feelings of well-being):
dis´ci´pline n.
1. Training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior, especially training that produces moral or mental improvement.
2. Controlled behavior resulting from disciplinary training; self-control. [auto-control?]
3.a. Control obtained by enforcing compliance or order.
b. A systematic method to obtain obedience: a military discipline.
c. A state of order based on submission to rules and authority: a teacher who demanded discipline in the classroom.
4. Punishment intended to correct or train.
5. A set of rules or methods, as those regulating the practice of a church or monastic order.
6. A branch of knowledge or teaching. &emdash;
dis'ci'pline tr.v. dis'ci'plined, dis'ci'plin0ing, dis'ci'plines.
1. To train by instruction and practice, especially to teach self-control to.
2. To teach to obey rules or accept authority. See Synonyms at teach.
3. To punish in order to gain control or enforce obedience. See Synonyms at punish.
4. To impose order on: needed to discipline their study habits. [Middle English, from Old French descepline, from Latin disciplhna, from discipulus, pupil. See DISCIPLE.] &emdash;dis2ci0pli0nal (-plõ-nõl) adj. &emdash;dis2ci0plin1er n. ? dek-.
Important derivatives are: decent, doctor, doctrine, document, dogma, paradox, decorate, dainty, dignity, disdain, indignant, disciple, discipline. dek-. To take, accept. 1. Suffixed (stative) form *dek-T-. DECENT, from Latin decTre, to be fitting (< “to be acceptable”). 2. Suffixed (causative) o-grade form *dok-eye-. a. DOCENT, DOCILE, DOCTOR, DOCTRINE, DOCUMENT, from Latin docTre, to teach (< “to cause to accept”); b. DOGMA, (DOGMATIC); DOCETISM, DOXOLOGY, HETERODOX, ORTHODOX, PARADOX, from Greek dokein, to appear, seem, think (< “to cause to accept or be accepted”). 3. Suffixed form *dek-es-. a. (DéCOR), DECORATE, from Latin decus, grace, ornament; b. DECOROUS, from Latin decor, seemliness, elegance, beauty. 4. Suffixed form *dek-no-. DAINTY, DEIGN, DIGNITY, CONDIGN, DIGNIFY, DISDAIN, INDIGN, (INDIGNANT), (INDIGNATION), from Latin dignus, worthy, deserving, fitting. 5. Reduplicated form *di-dk-ske-. DISCIPLE, (DISCIPLINE), from Latin discere, to learn. 6. (DOWEL), PANDECT, SYNECDOCHE, from Greek dekhesthai, to accept. 7. DIPLODOCUS, from Greek dokos, beam, support. [Pokorny 1. de|- 189.] ?
