I remember a time, when I was younger, where I had a lot of determination and focus on developing personal discipline. This seemed, from every way I could look at it, to be a good approach, but I noticed over time that it seemed to have difficulty achieving lasting effects, and peculiar new quirks would quickly spring up in unexpected places. Rather like trying to plug a leak in the old Pink Panther or Warner Brother cartoons.

I think the problem was that I was focusing far too much on the end goal - the discipline - and not enough on the root causes. It's one of the reasons I believe in depth-oriented psychology, even though I do take some issue with a lot of the methods and models used for it in this era. I've found that despite my notable lack of organization lately in taking care of my business, overall I have achieved many of the goals that I set out to achieve way back when by the simple expedient of "applying self-discipline" without any such expenditure of maintenance effort. Changing the fundamental mechanisms of my thinking and action has rendered the grinding application of will to a recalcitrant whimsy redundant, if not absurd. I'm still working on it, mind you, but I notice sometimes the things I do with ease - things that used to be impossible. Change takes us all under its wings.