Story
Odysseus finds himself on the island of Phaecia, at a banquet. He hears the song of the fall of Troy and weeps. King Alcinous asks him who he is and his story begins.
He starts at the moment of victory. He and his men leave Troy and finally sail home after 10 years of war.
A storm pushes his fleet of men towards the coast of the Cicones, allies of the Trojans whom they had fought against. Odysseus and his men sack and plunder their city, Ismarus. Killing the men and taking the women. This is the kind of journey home that Greek soldiers expected after winning a war.
It’s one thing to win a victory, its another to become a barbarian. Odysseus decides that enough is enough and tells his men to load the ships and leave before reinforcements arrive for the Cicones. They refuse. They want to feast, drink and celebrate the victory they had just spent a decade fighting for. Overnight, some Cicones who had escaped come back with an army. At dawn they attack. Over seventy of Odysseus’ men are killed. Six men from every ship. All because they didn’t know when to stop.
They barely make it to the ships, and almost as soon as they sail, they find themselves in a storm. The storm lasts for nine days and blows them wildly off course. They find themselves in completely uncharted waters. Odysseus and his men happen upon an island. Odysseus sends three men to scout it. They discover a peaceful people who offer them a strange flowering plant to eat called the lotus.
The scouts eat the lotus and they are completely satisfied. They weren’t poisoned, they weren’t sick. Almost as soon as they had eaten the lotus they forgot food, their wives, their homes and even their names. Their only desire became to sit on the island and eat lotus forever.
Odysseus finds these men, and drags them back to his ships kicking and screaming. As he takes them back, they weep and fight him the entire way. Odysseus and his crew tie them under the rowing benches like cargo. He then orders the rest of his men to stay clear of the plan and gets every ship off the island before anyone else is tempted.
Truth
As soon as they leave Troy, Odysseus’ men fail. They fail twice within the same 10 days. This failure looks like two different problems:
Hubris / At Ismarus, they can’t stop.
They had won and continued to celebrate their victory to excess. Too much wasn’t enough. It costs them greatly.
Apathy / At the island of the Lotus Eaters, they can’t start.
They are satisfied to the point of not wanting anything at all. Their lives become easy and comfortable and their entire reason for going home disappears.
ὕβρις (hubris) is excessive pride that oversteps its rightful limit. Apathy, or ἀκρασία (akrasía) in Greek is literally a lack of strength. It is doing what you know you shouldn’t do, or failing to do what you know you should do. Even while you continue to observe yourself do it.
Hubris and apathy look like opposites. They share a root, a lack of discipline.
It takes discipline to not push beyond what is appropriate. It also takes discipline to do what you know you must do, even when you don’t want to.
Solomon said this about hubris:
“If you find honey, eat just what you need, lest you have too much and vomit it up.”
/ Proverbs 25:16
He said this about apathy:
“He dies for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly.” / Proverbs 5:23
A lack of discipline will lead us to both excess and apathy. And the compound effect of either, or both will lead to our downfall.
Discipline was the only thing that could have stopped Odysseus’ men from being killed or being stuck.
Practice
Discipline is simply the application of what you already know.
If you want to fail in life, it’s easy. Simply don’t do what you know to do every day. And over time, you will accumulate failure.
If you want to win in life, it’s also easy. Simply do what you know to do every day. And, over time, you will accumulate success.
“Here’s my formula for success: A few simple disciplines practiced everyday. Success is accumulated discipline.” / Jim Rohn
Myron Golden says that success or failure are automatic. You will automatically be a success or failure. How? Based on the decisions you make. If you make good decisions every day, you will become automatically successful. If you make bad decisions every day, you will become an automatic failure.
So, here’s the question:
What do you know that you need to do every day that you just aren’t doing?
When are you going to start doing it?