I’ve cut back on a bit on drinking and smoking over the years. I still do both sometimes! But I’ve exercised some discipline to do it less than I used to. It’s got me thinking about discipline more generally.
I believe living in the USA in 2025 requires a significant amount of discipline to keep a steady head. There’s a lot of distractions and not-great-for-you activities to do. It feels kind of cyberpunk to me. A lot of it is technology-based.
New items that increase the “discipline requirements” of modern USA:
The smart phone has to be the most important new phenomenon that increases the need for discipline. You know the reasons. Doom-scrolling, opening some app every 5 minutes even though you don’t care what’s posted, the list goes on. I’d guess that a large portion of the US population is spending at least 30 minutes at both ends of their sleep cycle (going to bed and waking up) consuming content that only harms their quality of sleep and therefore mental clarity. I struggle with that unless I charge my phone away from my bedside. “But it’s my alarm!”.
The topic of social media being addictive has been beaten to death. We all know, certainly I do. Nonetheless I spend hours every week reading through timelines I don’t really need to be viewing so often. It leaves me feeling hollow.
If you play video games for any significant amount of time, I urge you to stop! I quit video games cold turkey around 2020 and I think I’m much better for it. Time instead went to socializing, working that extra hour occasionally, reading a book, playing violin, being active, sitting on the couch relaxing. Video games take up a lot of time, even if it’s just an hour every other day or so. I think it’s a big dopamine hit and can be very addictive. Like cigarettes. And we should try to avoid cigarettes, too. And where cigarettes will likely take off some of the remaining years in old age, frequent video game use without question takes off some of the best years of your life when you could be experiencing the world and developing yourself. I acknowledge many people disagree with me on this. I understand. And I smoke cigarettes occasionally!
Pot is legal now. Cool. As someone who has enjoyed weed most his young-adult life, I’ve always been concerned about the need to be disciplined if I’m going to be smoking it. I’m confident some of that concern came from it being illegal. We now, legally and culturally, say it’s A-OK to be smoking dope. I don’t think it is. If you’re going to do it, be careful. It’s the same issue with alcohol but I’m trying to limit this post to new phenomena that require discipline.
Online gambling is handicapping many people’s chances at financial freedom. I’ve seen it myself a few times already. I’d label it straight up predatory. They advertise DraftKings during the games now. I’d also say this increases the amount of time spent watching sports. “I’m watching this North Dakota State game because of my parlay!”.
Related to sports gambling, there is an endless amount of live sports you can view every hour of the day. Soccer, football, basketball, horse racing, baseball, I could go on. The same problem exists with streaming movies and web series. I’m not evangelizing going cold-turkey on these things but I bet we all know people that spend too much time watching streaming services and sports.
Online shopping is a bit different than the others because it’s easier to have a healthy relationship with the activity. It’s incredibly convenient and increases the variety of goods available to us. But like online gambling, there is a similar risk to wasting significant amounts of money and time on unnecessary actions. And I’ve seen it become an addiction.
Remote work requires discipline. One doesn’t have the in-person energy to help them stay focused. They don’t have the convenience / ease of walking over to their colleague if they are running into issues and need help. They must learn to have the discipline to engage either async or over another zoom call. It’s more difficult for their manager to be a force of order / discipline themselves. One could argue that it’s good that management can’t be such a force of discipline in remote work. Okay, fine. Like I said, the requirement for discipline is on the remote worker now. I’ve managed remote software teams the past couple years and have developed some strong opinions on this. I don’t have a lot of patience for individuals who lack energy or effort in a remote setting, I’m not going to micro-manage them from Slack / Zoom. If someone consistently misses deliverables and they are not available and active, they need to develop some discipline or I’m advocating we let them go. Remote work is a privilege but it’s a 2-sided sword.
I highlight these items because I think it is interesting, all these new phenomena that we must now engage with. I don’t mean to promote a life that involves a total avoidance of all these activities. I don’t think that’s reasonable. I strongly adhere to the saying of “all things in moderation”. But next time you see an article on the topic of “the anxious generation” or however it’s being pitched, I hope you remember this post. Discipline is the answer!