Today was my regular day to write to my adopted soldier in Afghanistan. Knowing that I'd be doing some traveling, I brought paper and an already-addressed envelope with me on my vacation. As usual, my note was filled mostly of small talk - news from the US, sports talk, etc. To be honest, I feel a little "lame" writing such trivial things, but carrying on a totally one-sided conversation is proving to be somewhat of a challenge. Hopefully I'll hear from him soon so that we can begin to engage in some back and forth dialogue. If not, I'll have to keep reminding myself that any mail he receives is definitely better than no mail.
The process of writing these weekly letters to an unknown and unseen person, with no feedback, has me thinking about the importance of discipline. I think of discipline as the ability to get myself to do what I know I should do, even when I don't feel like doing it. It requires a strong focus on the value of the goal. In this case, I have total belief in the importance of our soldiers receiving mail to keep their spirits up and to know that they're appreciated. I also believe strongly in the importance of honoring commitments. As a condition of adopting a soldier, I made a commitment to write a letter every week throughout the rest of his deployment. Even though I don't necessarily feel like writing, especially with no feedback, I'll continue to be steadfast in following through because it's important and becasue I said I would. That's what discipline is all about.
No comments:
Post a Comment