I have been thinking a lot about this lately as my frustration with my neighbors continues to grow again.
No, it isn't the garbage as I wrote about earlier in my entry titled Good Fences and Questionable Neighbors. The garbage is making it to and from the street, mostly.
But I have begun to notice other things around me that point to lack of a disciplined mind. And I am at fault too, as my loving wife will often point out.
The evidence of a undisciplined mind can be seen in simple things, like walking over or around the basket of clothes waiting to either go to the laundry or be put away after coming up from the laundry.
Seeing a cup fall out of the car and not stopping to retrieve it an place it in the trash. But leaving it to see in whose yard it will blow into.
Parking the car sideways in the drive--this one really amazes me because it may be easier to pull into, but it sure creates problems parking the other vehicle and then departing in the morning.
So what are the traits of a disciplined mind?
A disciplined mind closes the cupboard door after retrieving a measuring cup.
It puts the top down on the toilet when business is finished.
It picks up the tuft of dog hair on the sofa and deposits it in the trash.
It picks up the newly delivered phone book strewn around the base of the mailboxes at the same time as when retrieving the mail.
It recognizes that the Styrofoam Chic-fil-A cup lying in the drive is soon going to be debris in a neighbor's yard and moves the cup into a trash receptacle.
A disciplined mind takes the trash out instead of trying to cram another piece into the already overflowing receptacle.
And so, I think I have captured the archetype of the disciplined mind. As I pondered it more, I realized that one of the defining differences between children and adults is the transition to a more disciplined mind.
Can one therefore extrapolate that those who do not possess a more disciplined mind are still children?
I wonder.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
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