Jake to You greeting,

My father taught me discipline.

He tried teaching it through disciplining, but that actually hid the real lesson of his example. I have lacked discipline in my life while he is the most disciplined man I know.

Growing up it was clear which parent was the bad cop, the enforcer, the 'scary' one. If my brothers or I screwed up, we told mom and braced for dad.

Because he was always ready to discipline.

But that only taught me right from wrong, which in his defense is a lesson that must be learned earlier. How can one repeatedly act right without knowing it from wrong.

The real lesson I needed was logically how important discipline was to success, how directly correlated the two are and how the former is causally followed by the latter.

Genius is only achieved through discipline.

Yesterday I stood in line for a Mountain Dew at the local Maverick. The man in line ahead of me asked the clerk for a can of Grizzly Long Cut chewing tobacco, then whined for some time about his inability to quit the stuff.

"The best way to quit" he said, "is to eat sunflower seeds every time you get the urge to chew. I'm a pro now with seeds. I shuffle a seed from one cheek to the other, seamlessly removing the fruit midway. I'm a pro. It's the best way to quit."

Then the clerk gave the man his total for his purchase of Grizzly Long Cut chewing tobacco. Nice system, asswipe.

What I wanted to say to the man was "I think you're wrong. I think the best way to quit is to have a little self discipline and stop buying the shit!"

That's what I wanted to say, but as I was about to purchase my version of Grizzly Long Cut, I kept my mouth shut.

I lack self discipline.

My dad, it should be noted here, quit chewing tobacco by sucking on cloves every time he got the urge to chew. He also stopped buying the shit, but the lesson to be learned is that any system may work if you are disciplined, and will fail if you are not.

My father has that discipline. He is morally disciplined, with one outlier that is forgivable to me for many reasons. He is physically disciplined, though this is more historically accurate than a December 2009 item. For most who know him, however, dad is most disciplined in the idea that good people deserve help whilst bad people may deserve your middle finger.

He follows this rule in everything he does.

Good people get help when something breaks; Bad people pay someone else to do a worse job fixing it.

Good people have a fearless voice to speak on their behalf; bad people find a fearless foe with well-thought-out objections to overcome.

These actions would lead to two obvious results: My father would be loved by everyone who truly knows him and would be Horrible in any and all political situations.

Both are completely what is seen today.

Discipline.

I now turn to develop ways to structure my life to include discipline. I am unhappy with the success I have in my life and hope to increase it. I am unhappy with my current level of genius and plan to increase it. I am unhappy with the number of meaningful personal friendships in my life and I will increase it.

My father taught me discipline.

But teaching does not occur in the teacher. It occurs within the student and only through the student's change in behavior is the lesson demonstrated.

Now, with thoughts of discipline in my mind, I sleep.

You were there.