The arts of love and discipline and the four character categories

I worked out the following mental model of our internal drive in life. Our characters are greatly influenced by mastering two key skills; the art of love and the art of discipline.

Many thinkers have referred to love as an art, and very recently discipline and self control are also believed to be a form of art that takes hard work to master.

In this simple model, love is presented as an opposite to fear. Discipline, on the other hand, is presented as an opposite to passivity. This model results in four main categories of characters which are described below.

Please take this with a pinch of salt. A model is never accurate but is sometimes useful. In addition, it is unlikely that anyone of us fits into only one of these categories. It is more like, each one of us has all of these categories in his/her character with varying degrees of influence.

Now to the categories:

• The Leader:
  The leader loves oneself, loves the world, and has found her bliss in life. She is also an active decision maker. She consciously makes choices and does not stand by waiting for life to happen to her. This pattern becomes visible to others and attracts some as followers, and others as enemies. The leader has the greatest chances of all other categories of becoming happy and successful.

• The Follower:
  The follower is in love with oneself and the other. The follower has also found his bliss. But the follower has low self-discipline and is lousy at making conscious decisions. The follower will not be very successful, except by luck perhaps. The follower has a great chance of being happy.

• The Misguided:
  The misguided is a poor lover. Fearful and hateful. The misguided nevertheless is a decision maker and has a strong well-trained discipline muscle. The misguided is by no means submissive and is able to consciously make choices and remain focused on achieving goals. Hence, the misguided is very successful. However, since these choices are mostly motivated by fear and hate, the misguided cannot be genuinely happy.

• The Miserable:
  The miserable lack both the ability to love and the ability to control oneself. Paralyzed by fear, the miserable is a prisoner of himself. Weak and hateful, the miserable is both unsuccessful and unhappy.

This post is entirely based on my own thoughts. I have been inspired by many books and videos on self-discipline and love. Most notable References which inspired me:
1- The Art of Love, Erich Fromm
2- Public speeches by Simon Sinek