Let’s sort it out!:My personal war against indiscipline - Part 1

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In the mid 1980s General Ibrahim Buhari presided over a decree that was generally referred to WAI ( War against Indiscipline). I recall that it was very serious and people took notice of it. Apparently it’s intent was to instill public morality, discipline and social order with cvil responsibilities. For example lining up in an orderly fashion to board a bus or to gain access to high demand services, the promotion of hard work, patriotism, eradication of economic sabotage and corruption.   

They were interesting times and I find myself wondering why when we had such an effective tool, my homeland is still one of the most corrupt and indisciplined  places on this planet and seem’s devoid of patriotism! You could talk a lot about this decree, i mentioned it to a couple of my colleagues and they both came up with some interesting comments, so people still remember it.  That was on a national scale though, clearly it was designed to check your behaviour as an individual too after all doesn't charity begin at home?.  I have cause to be thinking about indiscipline in relation to myself because over the last few weeks, i have exercised little or no discipline in certain areas of my life and its now coming back to haunt me.

I have for a significant amount of time been trying to lose weight with Slimming world, but of recent times my success has waned and to be honest I could easily complain that slimming world is hard, it not my fault, I had to go out, I was busy, and so on and so forth, and on occasion on a Monday night at SW in Limbury, Luton I have been known to spout out all sorts of rubbish as to why I have put on weight as opposed to having lost. In actuality I can hand on my heart say that I think SW is the best eating plan available because its the nearest you are going to get to real life, in my opinion anyway. Here is where i could go on to wax lyrical about SW, but i will curb it for now. if you want to know more about Slimming world though click www.slimmingworld.com  or if you live in Luton or Dunstable you can look for slimming in Luton and Dunstable on Facebook. what I want to talk about is indiscipline. the elements of Buhari's WAI that I think can be applied to my issues:

1. Promotion of hard work

Some people say that anything good in life generally comes from hard work  and yes it does not seem fair that some people ( like those i would generally call skinny rats) can seem to eat what they like when they like and not put on an ounce of weight. I know of someone of similar age to me that can still fit into their school uniform, how just is that? Some of us though have to work at keeping weight at bay.  Slimming world is hard work thought because you have to make decisions, you have to consider the impact of what you are choosing. You have to make time to cook, you need to be assertive in restaurants and so on.  Like anything else, when its working for you, you don’t feel that it is hard work, in fact you would probably say its easy, but throw in a curved ball - a party, a night out, difficult work pattern - to mention a few and then it becomes a whole new ball game. That is when you have to do that extra piece of work that it seems the skinny rats don't. Hard work also means a little bit of sacrifice- yes i have said it - sacrifice, we have to cut down on certain foods we like.  

One thing I understand is that we all have the capacity for hard work, we do it all the time at work, at home, school etc losing weight or any other goal is just another element, and more importantly its something we should be able to do for ourselves. 

2. Patriotism

Dictionary.com : patriotism is the devoted love and support and defence of one’s country or national loyalty

Well that’s the formal definition, but by extension should we not love ourselves and behave or act in a manner that is good for  us after all, most of us would not commit acts of treason so why do things that are not conducive to what we are trying to achieve. Is it because failure at it  does not carry a jail sentence or death by firing squad?  I believe that is is lack of discipline end of. One might at this point question the difference between indiscipline and lack of will power.  Some might say that indiscipline relates to individuals within a group, compared to will power which is the ability to control ones actions. Eitherway they are both relevant in our ever increasing quest for perfection. 

3. The eradication of economic  sabotage and corruption.

This is my favourite element!  its clear what this means on a national scale, and you have only to recall the scandalous behaviour of the banks, and other financial institutions  to see how groups of people can be totally devoid of any morals or good values! So how does this apply in one’s personal quest to be slimmer. My break down goes as such.  In terms of sabotage, lets say for example  as a result of religiously incorporating SW into your life, you drop 2 dress sizes- you throw out all your old clothes and buy new ones. Then some curved balls come along or you just simply fall off the wagon and the weight starts to come back on, what do you do? do you go and buy new clothes, can you afford that? That could be classed as sabotage (albeit not necessarily deliberate) economic and also emotional. After all, apart from the clothes, if the weight came on because of continually eating out, then that’s also adding strain to the finances, and the ability to make good choices whilst out will put a strain on how you feel about your self, hence the emotional sabotage and that not mentioning the health impact.  

The other part of this element is corruption..ok not your whole scale fraud like the what happened in the banks for example, but this is the bit where we as people have to be honest with ourselves, honest about our goals  and what we are doing to achieve those goals.  So when we joined Slimming world we are given a book with a whole lot of instructions and tools on how to do the plan, if you don't read it or make sure you understand it how do you expect to get to your goals, worse, what if one goes to class, and having put on weight does not admit to not reading the book, or to having more than the 250ml of semi skimmed milk that we are allowed?!( just a couple of examples, trust me there are many more) You may have told yourself that the extra bit of milk wont hurt, or eating chips off your husband or wife’s plate does not count, but in the end its deception and it sabotages your otherwise good efforts. 

Apart from the example of not having read the slimming world book, all the examples cited are real examples that apply to me personally. There are some other examples, but I really just wanted to say that really in so far as one is a healthy human being, the main reason we carry so much extra weight is lack of discipline. That is my personal opinion and the reason, I get quite vexed with myself when I have not done well