Compromise

Location: Frederick Street near Edna Street, Kitchener, Ontario

Description: A tree growing at a roughly 45 degree angle in the foreground, Frederick Street in the mid-ground, and numerous trees in front of Weber Park in the background.

Story: A woman in the third row raised her hand and was given a microphone. "Could you expand on the importance of discipline?"

Mr. Dunham's reply was short, "I certainly could," and then he sat down. The audience grew uneasy at this prompting the announcer to add, "I believe she wanted you to do that now, if you would be so kind." Mr. Dunham nodded in response, "Just having a little fun," and rose to his feet.

"The discipline I'm referencing is self-discipline, not disciplining someone when they do something wrong. Self-discipline is about inner-strength and doing something even if it isn't easy or convenient at the current time. I knew you all wanted to me to say something for the past minute, but I didn't. Even though there were hundreds of people wanting me to speak, I was disciplined and stood my ground.

"This might sound a little strange, especially to those of you who are married, but compromise can be bad. If I compromise on painting a room and choose tangerine over my preference of orange, it wouldn't be a big deal.  However, if I went with someone's suggestion of skydiving when I'm terrified of heights, then problems would arise. Knowing what you're comfortable with and not giving in to peer pressure are incredibly important for maintaining your mental well-being.

"But discipline is for more than just avoiding problems with others; it's also for bettering yourself. So many people have things they want to do and yet leave undone, like learning a new language or playing an instrument. These things take a little time each day to practice, yet we lack the discipline to do it. Think about how many things you've wanted to do at different points in your life: starting a business, travelling the world, scaling a mountain, writing a novel, etc. Sometimes there are reasons you can't do those things, but most of the time you just need to discipline yourself to set aside time or money each day, create a budget, and plan to accomplish your goal.

"Who here would like to be a millionaire?" Everyone raised their hands. "Ok, and who is thirty or younger?" Slightly less than half responded in the affirmative. "Well, for you it's easy." He walked back to his podium, picked up a calculator, then started to walk around the stage. "So if you're thirty and you're going to work until you're sixty let's say, that's thirty-three thousand three hundred thirty three dollars a year you'll need to make, which is roughly six hundred a forty one dollars a week." He looked up, "Of course, that's without interest of any sort." He returned his gaze downwards. "So let's give you a modest 2.5% yearly interest, compounded monthly, and you only need to set aside two-thirds of before at four hundred thirty a week."

He smiled and nodded to the murmurs in the audience. "I know that's still a lot, but let's say you could have started saving when you were fifteen, then you would have only needed two hundred and thirty-one dollars a week. And if you were planning to let that nest egg continue to grow from age sixty to eighty, then it's a measly one hundred and forty dollars a week. The longer you go and the more disciplined you are, the greater things you can accomplish."

He put the calculator back. "Let me give you a better example though, one that's much easier: writing a novel. I don't care what it's about, I just want you to know that it's an easy task. The minimum length for a novel is around 40,000 words, and you can fit around 500 words on one page. That means you only need to type 80 pages of content to write a novel. When we were in school, we often had to write four or five page essays on topics. If you took all your essays from school and put them together, you would have written more than a novel's worth of content. So try it; spend a few months writing a page a day of a story, and see how it goes. It'll just take a little discipline, time, and creativity to accomplish something amazing."