The Importance of Temperance
Over the last couple years, I have worked harder on one skill more than any other - self-discipline.
It started out with small optimizations in my daily routine. I re-evaluated my behaviors after reading James Clear’s Atomic Habits, and had introduced new ones with intention and purpose. I cut back on alcohol, I started taking cold showers, but everything I did came down to this:
How could I be my best for Julia when she needed me most?
Self-discipline was easy with this purpose behind it. In reflection, despite all my best efforts, my body was so full of stress and adrenaline that, after she died, I had a hard time adjusting and decompressing. I was so used to being on my toes that phone calls in the middle of the day would set me off, especially if they were from Ruari’s school, because physiologically I was still expecting the worst.
So how do I cope now that I am not needed in the same way? My world is a much safer place but it has taken my body and brain some time to realize it.
The thing is, I am proud of the version of myself that stepped-up to the occasion. I like the man I was, Julia’s man, her champion. Without the purpose of improving the length and quality of her life, without external dangers spurring me on, could I still maintain discipline and self-improvement?
Days bleed into weeks of feeling listless. I had worked on being the best version of myself for her; without her, what’s the point?
Mourning Julia has meant not just grieving the loss of my wife, but a loss of the life we were building together. I’m grieving so many things, including the version of myself I was most proud of becoming.
I built a world for a person I no longer am and with a person who is no longer here, and while parts of the person I was echo in my new reality, I have to be conscious about what I bring with me. And what I want to bring with me is that self-discipline.
It was one thing to perform to a high standard as a husband and a caregiver, now watch me do it for myself.
For me, I find it easiest to work to a plan. And for my double 70.3 triathlon challenge this summer, I’ve been using Phil Mosley’s 70.3 triathlon plans as the basis of my training. (With some room for flexibility; I’m chasing progress, not perfection).
So here’s a look at the training I did this past week. And though it takes a certain amount of willpower to turn up and run the drills in my training schedule, my reflection on self-discipline, on temperance, is not about what I did do, it’s about what I didn’t do.
Rest days are an important part of the process, they help you absorb the training and set you up for the longer sessions on the weekend. I have found it hard to rest, to stay still; my body wants to move, to train, to do something, to keep moving forward.
Because exercise is a good distraction; because working out makes me feel closer to who I was; because it makes me feel close to Julia still. I didn’t want a rest day.
I pretend to myself that I’m listening to my body - body that wants to keep moving, a body that is able to keep moving - but it’s important to slow down, to not overdo it. It’s important to take the time to reflect on how your body, as well as your mind, is doing. It’s counterproductive to keep moving forward out of fear and adrenaline.
Having the discipline to hold back is as important as it is to get started; action and inaction can exist at the extremes of the same spectrum of activity, it’s important to get the balance right.
Grief is going to change me, it has changed me, and I’m sad most of all that Julia won’t know these new iterations of me. But I can’t stay fixed where I am; I have to let go of my attachment to who I was, I have to let myself grow into someone that Julia didn’t know.
I’m fortunate because Julia was so positive and optimistic and hopeful. She made me feel like she already understood my potential, that she already knew what I was capable of. Any successes I achieve, any direction life takes me, I know she’d just smile and casually say, “I knew it.”
