“We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.” — Jim Rohn

My grandfather was a real Clint Eastwood type. A former police officer who spent his retirement years on a ranch up in the Idaho mountains, my grandfather had a short (bordering on gruff), yet sweet way of communicating.

As a kid, I’d spend my summers between school years on that ranch riding horses, firing guns, feeding ducks, and plucking raspberries.

It was like stepping into a different world. Out of the city and into…I dunno, maybe a western movie?

I craved my grandfather’s attention cause to me at that time he embodied what it meant to be a man.

So I pushed myself to wake up at the crack of dawn alongside him (though still to this day I don’t see what the rush to beat the sun was, surely the animals would wait?).

I pushed myself to work hard digging fence-posts, even when it seemed as though we were building a fence to keep the nothing away from the other nothing.

I pushed myself to find only the perfect berries, and pluck them with delicate care, when buried deep in the bowels of a raspberry bush, even though there were countless thousands of good-enough berries easily within finger’s reach.

I learned discipline from my grandfather, but at the time, it wasn’t entirely clear what we we’re disciplining ourselves for. To a kid, it seemed like an awful lot of work for no particular reason.

Surely he wanted to spend his retirement relaxing a little more. Surely he would’ve been happier sleeping in and working a little less.

I asked him about this once. His answer has stuck with me all these years:

“People only ever regret the things they don’t do.”

This puzzled my young pre-adolescent brain, but I nodded solemnly as though I understood perfectly.

In the years since that conversation I’ve twirled this little chunk of advice around my mind’s dance-floor a couple thousand times. Each time it reveals something new.

Not bad for only 9 words.