On May 26, 2012,
the fourth of my offspring — and first son — got married. Since I have four
kids, that’s probably it. Our family is compulsively monogamous. It was till
death do them part for my parents and those of my spouse. Maida has somehow
managed to keep her vows to me for 42 or so years, and my three daughters too seem
to be in it for the long haul. While this is not nearly as interesting as Kate
and Will making it for an entire year or Kim Kardashian not making it to day
73, it does induce me to reflect on a particularly relevant topic: discipline.
I learned about
discipline in grade school. It meant a couple of things. As a noun, it meant
sitting up straight and silent at my desk, hands folded, for several hours. As
a verb, it meant the horrible pain that would be inflicted upon me if I did
not. I either had discipline or would be disciplined. The word was not among my
all time favorites.
In later years,
my respect for the term would rise. Discipline, I came to realize, is not the
reason people start great things, but it is the reason people finish them. That
99 percent perspiration Edison talked about is the difference between the idea of a light bulb and the little
globe that actually illuminates when you hit the switch.
The great tenor
Enrico Caruso, who single-handedly popularized another Edison brain child, the
phonograph, was asked the secret of his great success as a singer. His formula?
“Work, work, and, again, work.”
The Beatles, who
also took advantage of the phonograph player, separated themselves from the
plethora of Liverpool boy bands of their era when they went to Germany for many
months and were forced to hone their craft with endless sessions of practice
and performance, 10,000 hours in the happy mantra of author Malcolm Gladwell,
who documents the power of disciplined effort in his book, Outliers.
We speak often
of a loving relationship but seldom of a disciplined one. I mean, who would
rush off to the Cineplex to see “Discipline Is a Many Splendored Thing,” “Discipline
Story” or “Discipline, Actually”? Yet marriages full of love but lacking
discipline rarely survive. Marriages end for a lot of reasons, of course, and separation
can certainly be the best course of action in a given set of circumstances. My
only wish here is to explore the role of discipline in happy, long-term
marriages.
Ryan and my
daughter Marisa married 13 years ago. They have two objectively gorgeous sons,
Cai and Landon. I have watched these parents parent, and I have been amazed.
Marisa had a
good job as a deaf educator when Cai was born. She took one look at him and
quit her good job to become a good mother. She now works part time. Ryan is a hugely
successful management consultant, Naval Academy Grad, and just last year an
honoree as one of the finest young business leaders in his region of the
country. All of this took great discipline.
However, if you
asked him about his greatest accomplishment, he would point to his sons. I have
seen him arrive home from a hard day’s work (isn’t that a Beatles song?)
clearly yearning for an inviting mattress and total silence. Instead, he sits
with Cai and Landon for a couple of hours, playing, reviewing their respective
days, being with them. He helps with dinner and takes them to bath, bed, and
beyond. He does this daily and on weekends. His motto, one he lives and
transmits to them daily, is “love and respect.” I love and respect Ryan, a
loving and disciplined father to my grandsons.
Glen married
daughter Cari two weeks after Ryan and Marisa wed. They have three children.
Cari opted to remain a college professor with her husband. At Misericordia
University, they built a Speech Language Department literally from the ground
up, and it is today a superlative program gaining a deserved international
reputation. I have observed the chair, Glen, chauffer his children to and from
school every day, then chauffer them to ballet and soccer in the evening and on
weekends. Without discipline of a high order, it is doubtful the family would
have access to more than one meal every two or three days.
Chris married
Tanya a few years ago. He works hard as a senior supervisor for a major
pharmaceutical firm, doing double shifts and often going all night. He arrives
home, takes his little Enna and Lila from their Mom, and showers them with the
love only a father can bestow. Tanya has taken a hiatus from her job as a high
school counselor to care for Lila, but she will return full time in September,
and she and Chris will succeed because both have the discipline to do so.
Nick is the one
getting married. Talk about discipline. He has been repeatedly diagnosed with
ADHD and, after receiving a BA from Pitt, he worked for nearly a decade at a
number of jobs before deciding, stunningly, to become like his sister a speech
pathologist. It took almost four years of dogged determination, enormous
sustained effort, and constant battle with his disorder, but he graduated in
December.
That was plenty,
just not enough for him. With straight A’s, he won the state award as top grad
student in his field and a prestigious national award from his professional
Association. He will study for his Ph.D. at one of the most renowned programs
in the country. He is my son and my hero.
He met Amanda in
grad school. They plan to be researchers and professors together. And parents
together. To be sure, they will need an excess of love, the inner drive that
seeks only the good of the beloved, that binds a couple together in a sublime
and exciting life adventure. But they will need more. Love will get them
started, but something else will see them through. It is that inner ability to
create a goal and not rest until the goal is achieved.
Discipline,
actually.
No comments:
Post a Comment