In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present: I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.1

Throughout my life I have had a wide range of opportunities to practice self-discipline, walking through my day with purpose, intention, and self-control.

Early in my career, I worked as a critical-care inhalation therapist where I managed fast-paced clinical shifts, administered timed breathing treatments, and reviewed sensitive documentation. Building self-discipline in this role relied on structured shift habits and real-time tracking. My job was often a matter of life or death, requiring me to bring my best self: alert, aware, confident, up to date on changes within a major hospital.

That same set of skills guided me in all the jobs I filled throughout my professional life, whether working as an office manager, an airline employee, or a government specialist. Balancing work with school, raising children, running a household, or caring for aging parents, I found that my ability to practice self-discipline served me well.

But once I retired due to an on-the-job injury, I found I needed to set my own boundaries and goals. Working life forces a daily rhythm with alarm clocks and fixed shifts; open-ended retirement days can sometimes lead to aimlessness, procrastination, and an absence of external accountability.

Without bosses or project deadlines, I had to motivate myself. Regular exercise, early rising, and healthy meal prep can quietly slip away, and it can be easy to get caught up in things outside of my control. So I’ve needed to find my own sense of structure and follow that. In conversations with others who have retired, I’ve heard how difficult it can be to find that sense of direction again.

Retirement for some means traveling to timeshares or visiting grandchildren, but if we have a constant carryover of our bucket lists, we end up feeling we need even more discipline to avoid wasting time. A former colleague of mine shared that she no longer felt "needed" and had slid into a retirement rut, turning open time into excessive screen use, leaving her increasingly isolated from others.

A group of grade school friends I have known for 75 years recently met for lunch, and our conversation found us all on the same page. One remarked, “I wake up and it is 7am, then before I know it is 2pm and 9pm, and I wonder where the day went.” Whether retired or not, many of us feel time slipping away. I came away from that lunch thinking about my own days and how easily I can reach the evening without having done something I intended to do.

This is a time of life to wake up with purpose and understand that time disappears whether we use it or not. First thoughts of the day matter. The quality of our thoughts determines the quality of our actions, and the quality of our actions determines the quality of our life. If we think small, we'll act small; if we think defeated, we'll act defeated. But with self-discipline, we can maintain a high level of achievement every day.

When force of circumstance upsets your equanimity, you lose no time in recovering your self-control, and do not remain out of tune longer than you can help. Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery of it. — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.11

As Stoics, we know that we can navigate transitions with clarity. As we enjoy our retirement days, we can set personal milestones and replace corporate goals with meaningful projects, such as learning a language, volunteering weekly, or mastering a craft—all while building social accountability into the week. To help myself with this, I began penciling in a soft schedule using a day planner to write down wake-up times, exercise, and hobbies so the day feels intentional.

I’ve also found that having clear plans for now helps me spend less time going over things that happened in the past. After all, we can’t change what happened yesterday. We can’t undo one misspent second, take back one careless word, or avoid one past mistake. Yet so many of us carry yesterday into today like a heavy backpack, waking up thinking about what we should have said or done, letting today slip away.

No matter what phase of my life I find myself in, I can still choose to be aware of what I can control in the moment, asking myself what rules me: fear, reactivity, or thoughtful examination. Self-discipline can be mine if I make it a priority. And that’s what I choose to do.

Shirley Kwosek Sciacca is a writer, living in the midwest, seek- ing wisdom and resilience through lifelong learning and the practice of Stoic principles.

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