Self-Discipline is freedom. It is the way to allow yourself to act rationally

I know, this thread might not get any views, as I'm writing about something so obvious

But I think for many people, it's not so obvious. They associate self-discipline with rules and everything which is against their personal freedom. I think it is so, because there is the word "discipline" in "self-discipline", and we all experienced discipline in our home, in school, etc. We associate the word discipline with authoritarian figures.

It's true. But with self-discipline, you're your own authoritarian figure! You do what you want to do if you got self-discipline.

See, everything - literally everything, expect you might have OCD or are under the influence of drugs - you do is your own decision. If you relapse, it is not because your emotions made you relapse. It is you.

Even in everyday life, ask yourself: How many things do you do by consciously choosing to do them? How many things do you do because of habit, because of behavioral programming? I would say that 80% of things we usually do, we only do because of habit. It's easier to live life on auto-pilot, to have a set of responses readily available and choose them for certain situations. You only consciously decide to do something if you won't have a response ready!

So what I suggest to do is to try to be conscious that everything we do is our decision to do so, either because out of habit (we go on auto pilot) or because we consciously choose to do something.

If we really want self-discipline, and the freedom it comes with it, we need to make it the other way around: 80% of our decisions should be conscious, and 20% out of habit (like the way we sit in front of a desk, the way we eat a sandwich, ...)

You need to be aware of the fact that in this very second, you can decide to do what you want, only if you ignore your body and your emotions! If you feel horny, then you still have the choice to choose not to relapse, you can always ignore your body!

We need to learn how to detach ourselves from our body, from our emotions, only then we will be able to truly do what we want whenever we want! Only then!

But how should we detach ourselves from our bodies?

We should literally try to treat our bodies and emotions like the ones from another human being. If we start to feel horny when doing NoFap, we should think "The body is getting horny" instead of "I am getting horny". Remember: We are our brain! The brain does not know any emotions if there weren't a body! The brain only knows pure will.

The brain doesn't know what horniness is. But the body knows. But the body is not ours, as we are the brain and the brain is us, we only use the body as a machine.

I hope this will help someone realize that if we don't want to relapse, we don't need to relapse, that you can always choose not to relapse, no matter how horny your body might be, you (the brain) can always choose not to relapse. Without your consent, without your will, there will be no relapse!