I believe that self-discipline is the definition of self-love.
When you say you love yourself, that means that you have behaviors toward yourself that are loving. Destroying yourself is not one of them, even if it brings momentum pleasure or wins.
This is not utopic. It covers our daily routine from food habits to what we spend our lives doing or being with.
Its like when you really want to eat that pizza or burger, but you tell yourself: « I love you so much to let you do that ». Cause I know you are going to feel like shit about it later. You will blame yourself. You will feel fail and I love you too much to see you go through that.
I know that the word discipline has got too much negativity. We often think about it as a term of punishment but it shouldn’t be that way. It is like other words are over positively rated like motivation. High motivation with no action can ruin your life.
Discipline can be in a sense where you forgo immediate pleasure for the exchange of long-term self-respect. Cause you won’t be able to love yourself if you don’t respect it. It is still a relationship even if it is only with yourself. The basics of any successful relationship still accurate.
Self-love is caring. self-love is when you evaluate the situation in a way that brings you positive impact rather than pain later.
It’s like you have a test Monday and you want to go out party with your friends Saturday night. Instead of just going or staying with me-contentment and guilt. You consider: How would you feel about yourself if you fail? what are the consequences? You choose to work on your test by conviction.
You should be able to love yourself that much to be able to be disciplined.
If you want to be happy, you have to love yourself which means you have to discipline your behaviors. The road to sustain happiness is through disciplining your actions, toward where you see yourself going.
People who can do whatever they want. Living with no clear vision based on deep values, got lost and live unhappy thou they have freedom and can do whatever they want.
But when you drink too much or do drugs just because you can afford it, or betray your friend just cause you felt vibes with his girl or boy, or disobey the system cause you felt like doing it… it has nothing to do with self-love.