SELF-DISCIPLINE
Perhaps it is this conquest, conquest of one’s self through survival of such an ordeal, that brings a man back to frontiers again and again. It may be a storm, the arctic cold, or the desert heat. It may be a frontier of the spirit or of the mind. By testing himself beyond endurance man learns to know himself. He endures and grows. Each generation passes the limits defined by its elders: the passage of the oceans, the reaching of the poles, flight, the four-minute mile, the theory of relativity, atomic fission. In a small way, the conquest of a great peak is such a frontier.
—Charles Houston, after summiting K2, the world’s second-highest peak
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Speke needed to find the waterfall. It was imperative he locate that great northward outflow from Victoria Nyanza that would prove its connection to the Nile. That’s why he had come back to Africa—that, and the never before accomplished challenge of following the Nile all the way to Cairo.
The Speke-Grant expedition was launched in Bagamoyo on October 2, 1860, with Speke, his friend and fellow army veteran James Grant, the caravan leader and guide Sidi Mubarak Bombay, and the same long line of porters whom Speke and Burton once employed. And while their journey actually set forth from that Indian Ocean beach with the gentle rollers, the true jumping-off point would not come until they reached the shores of Victoria Nyanza. In between lay 1,000 miles of the same trials and hardships that Speke had endured with Burton; the same diseases, bugs, snakes, predators, hostile tribes, heat, mud, abject terror, and boredom.
Grant and Speke soon fell hopelessly behind schedule. They were cut off entirely from any sort of rescue as they penetrated deeper into the continent, and, as they finally drew nearer to Victoria Nyanza, heard rumors that a great African ruler had just sacrificed more than four hundred people to celebrate their arrival. Once the great lake was almost within their sights, that informal network of spoken-word messengers known as the bush telegraph brought more gossip of a king who refused to allow travelers to travel northward out of his country—precisely the direction Speke and Grant were headed.
And yet Speke and Grant remained completely undeterred. Some code, some inner drive, some sense of purpose, would not let Jack Speke and James Grant turn back.
They needed to find that waterfall.
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Self-discipline is all about action. It can be defined as emotional control, physical control, and behavioral control, and on this first journey as expedition leader, Speke offered a steely demonstration of all three. It helped that he got along well with his new travel partner, which was a welcome change to the personnel roster after the daily upheaval with Burton. Speke had become quite familiar with Africa during his previous journeys, and proved himself both fearless and canny when dealing with the Arabs and local tribes. He preferred to broker peace rather than using his considerable shooting skills to wage war or inflict terror. He overcame the daily fear and uncertainty that existed side by side within a journey beyond the realms of a surefire support or resupply network. And he behaved throughout like the most stellar example of an English gentleman, comporting himself with such grace and ease that it was as if he felt he would have to answer to some nameless etiquette authority upon his return to London should he become a boor.
The most striking aspect of all this was that Speke’s knowledge of Africa was limited to the small regions through which he and Burton had traveled. He knew nothing about the unknown lakes and peoples between Victoria Nyanza and Cairo. Yet throughout the journey, Speke was so confident in his ability to complete his mission that it was as if he knew far more.
This is known as self-efficacy.
Self-efficacy is simply a belief in one’s own competence. “Efficacy” comes from the Latin efficacia, a derivation of efficere, which means “to accomplish.” The seminal psychologist Albert Bandura, whose landmark 1977 paper “Self-Efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavioral Change” thrust accomplishment to the forefront of psychological research, describes it as “the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations.”
In other words, the ability to get the job done.
As Bandura has noted, “Self-belief does not necessarily ensure success, but self-disbelief assuredly spawns failure.”
But belief alone cannot complete a task, which is where the secondary component of self-discipline comes into play. This is known as self-mastery, and is defined as the harnessing of personal strengths and weaknesses to complete a goal. Together, self-efficacy and self-mastery form the two halves of self-discipline. If self-efficacy can be characterized as the determination to see a mission through to its completion, self-mastery is the necessary character modification needed to make that dream a reality.
This is a highly personal process. We are all different in the skills that we possess and the way in which we rein them in to complete our unique adventures. Sometimes this behavior modification is something as simple as a list of new dos and don’ts. The most common example is a weight loss program, with its requirements for more sleep, better hydration, less alcohol, less red meat, more vegetables, and a more logical and minimal caloric intake. Sounds simple, but we all know that is not the case. Habits and routines are hard to reroute, and the decision to consciously choose self-denial over comfort often needs to be repeated again and again and again.
There are other times when the behavior modification is a decision to control emotions, particularly when a journey becomes so grueling as to appear hopeless. For instance, one of the great caricatures of the Victorian explorer was that British ideal of portraying “a stiff upper lip” in times of danger. It implied a cool nonchalance, a steely backbone, and a sense of propriety. This was how Speke behaved.
It has been written that modern aircraft pilots owe their preternaturally calm in-flight demeanor to Chuck Yeager, the first man to break the sound barrier. Before him, radio chatter might be laced with whooping, hollering, and a general all-around display of emotions. But whether punching through Mach I or engaging in a World War II dogfight, the laconic Yeager maintained a calm monotone, as if such adventures were something he was observing with detachment. This cool delivery caught on, which was probably a good thing for commercial aviation. Not many of us would feel comfortable in a pressurized metal tube flown by a man screaming into the public address system about the jet stream and turbofan engines and anvil-headed clouds taking control of his aircraft. We want to know that the pilot is in charge, which is exactly what Yeager conveyed. He must have known some sense of panic or fear, but he never showed it. This is emotional self-discipline.
Speke was the Victorian Yeager. He wandered through the wilderness with the same casual intensity one might apply to a Sunday walk through Hyde Park. He became the Victorian model of how an explorer should behave. Interestingly, Speke and Yeager both model the revolving door of self-efficacy and self-mastery. According to Bandura, the ability to get the job done is enhanced through mastery experiences and the kudos that come with success. So for every act of discipline and self-control that eventually got an explorer through a journey, their confidence grew. And the next time they were challenged to do something that seemed impossible, not only did they find a way to accomplish that task, but they very often considered themselves to be the only individual capable of doing so. Some might have seen this as arrogance. In fact, this attitude was vital to the completion of their mission.
As Bandura has noted: “People with high assurance in their capabilities approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than as threats to be avoided.”
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Why, specifically, is self-discipline an important practice?
Perhaps the Catholic priest Basil William Maturin, who went down when the Lusitania was torpedoed by the Germans in World War I, has the answer. “We do not endure [self-discipline] merely for its own sake, but for what lies beyond i
t. And we bear those acts of self-denial and self-restraint because we feel and know full well that through such acts alone can we regain the mastery over all our misused powers and learn to use them with a vigor and a joy such as we have never known before,” he wrote one year before drowning.
These words closely resemble those of the Apostle Paul: “For we rejoice in our sufferings, because suffering produces perseverance; perseverance produces character; and, character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint us.”
What happens when we don’t endure the hardship of self-discipline? In modern life, those who spend too much, drink too much, inhale forbidden substances, and cheat on their spouses are immediately cast out as examples of people lacking self-discipline. But no one mentions what, specifically, constitutes the inverse. Self-discipline is not just the tool that saves us from throwing our lives upon the Viking bonfire of self-dissipation. It is also the path to a richer and fuller life. To walk down that path is to begin a journey of personal exploration no less daunting than any foray into Africa. We learn things about ourselves when we take the challenge to rein in our emotions, our impulses, and our pride.
Father Maturin speaks of that “joy such as we have never known before,” while explorers like the Frenchman Gaston Rebuffat speaks of “A power, a balance and reserve that normally lie dormant” that accompanies such acts of will.
The basis of all exploration was relentless pursuit of a dream. Regardless of calamity, setback, suffering, and woe, the final result was all that mattered. Giving up, no matter how valid the excuses, was considered an act of failure. So it was that explorers pushed themselves to their mental, physical, and emotional limits to achieve their mission.
Rather than being weakened by these ordeals, the explorers became stronger. Reaching their goal—finding the source of the Nile, reaching the South Pole, and so many others—was in many ways less satisfying than the sublime daily ritual of disciplining their minds and bodies to do the hard work necessary to complete their task. The polar explorer Martin Lindsay described it simply as “the pleasure one so surprisingly gets from trying to do something that is difficult.”
The problem with self-discipline is its extremist reputation. One imagines US Marine Corps drill instructors, flagellant priests, or the obsessive-compulsives who all too often inhabit the world of Ironman Triathlon. In fact, self-discipline just as often defines the daily routine of the successful artist or snowboarder. There is the perhaps apocryphal story of Ernest Hemingway making a personal promise not to drink a drop of alcohol until finishing his writing day. As the legend goes, Hemingway often remained true to that ideal by beginning his writing day very early in the morning, just so he could settle into his seat at the bar by noon.I
In its own convoluted way, that is self-discipline. A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea don’t happen without that well-intentioned but ultimately absurd daily promise.
To be self-disciplined is not to be perfect. It is to be striving toward a personal ideal that is different for each and every one of us. “In reading the lives of great men,” Harry Truman once said, “I found that the first victory they won was over themselves. Self-discipline with all of them came first.”
Whether done quickly or slowly, the process of attaining Speke-like self-discipline practiced by explorers followed five simple characteristics: (1) self-awareness: knowing oneself well enough to address weaknesses; (2) confrontation: a resolution to deal with a problem head-on; (3) commitment: adopt whatever new discipline is vital to complete a mission and perform it each day; (4) acceptance: stay positive, and realize that negative events are daily facts of life; and (5) respect: be good to yourself; self-discipline is not easy.
Speke was robbed, imprisoned, caught in a war, tempted with the gift of a teenage girl for a bed partner, forced to play the role of doctor to an African queen, ambushed by hostile tribes, endured porters who deserted and stole precious supplies, forced to witness a child being boiled alive, lost Grant for a time to severe illness, and suffered his own host of inevitable African sicknesses.
If anything, the hardships faced by Speke and Grant were far greater than those endured during the Speke and Burton Expedition. Speke and Grant—a Scot who had lost a thumb and forefinger while besieged during the Indian Mutiny of 1857–58—witnessed the execution of a man whose genitals were set on fire before he was ultimately stabbed; endured sickness leading to paralysis; was imprisoned by a hostile chieftain; knew the wrenching pain of a swollen spleen; and spent Christmas of 1861 with a king who force-fed his daughters beef drippings and fresh milk until they were obese, as a way of proving his great wealth and prosperity.
Speke and Grant endured malarias, diarrheas, joint pains, infections, and neuromuscular paralysis. There were countless delays and setbacks. There were bouts of loneliness, exhaustion, and adversity. There was, all around them, a vast and unforgiving landscape that had crushed the soul of many a traveler—and killed many, many more. It was a continent so hostile, so vast, and so treacherous that even the Africans Speke encountered along the journey were afraid to venture beyond their tribal boundaries.
But Speke led Grant through these trials by practicing a steely sort of self-discipline, comprised of habits and inner strength that allowed him to rise above his surroundings. Speke wrote with great detail in his journal each day, finding solace in the routine, knowing that someday these words being cobbled together in his tent, or before a campfire, would be part of his legacy, for they were his proof of his accomplishment. Speke kept his temper, even when African chiefs delayed his travels for their own amusement. He stayed on task, never losing sight of his goal of finding that all-important waterfall. And, most of all, Jack Speke pressed on toward his ultimate goal of becoming the first man in history to trace the Nile from one end to the other. He never ceased to tap into the inner power, personal balance, and normally dormant reserve of self-discipline that would see him through to his goal—especially in times of fear and self-doubt. In time, the word “mindfulness” would be applied to this mode of behavior. But Speke was hardly Zen. He simply thought of self-discipline as a means of getting the job done.
It was self-efficacy that led Speke to boldly propose that the RGS send him back into Africa to verify the source, thinking himself the best man for the job. In all of the world, Speke was convinced that he alone could accomplish this monumental task.
But once he got into Africa, that veneer of confidence was replaced by the mastery skills needed to get up each morning and put one foot in front of the other, even on days when turning around and fleeing back to London was quite obviously the wise thing to do.
Thus, Speke ultimately found his waterfall.
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The sight disappointed him.
The wellsprings of the Nile thundered out of Lake Victoria in a broad line some 400 feet across, by Speke’s estimation. “The roar of the waters, the thousands of passenger fish leaping at the falls with all their might, the Wasoga and Waganda fishermen coming out in boats and taking post on all the rocks with rod and hook; hippopotami and crocodiles lying sleepily on the water, the ferry at work above the falls, and cattle down to drink at the margins of the lake—made, in all, with the pretty nature of the country—small hills, grassy-topped, with trees in the folds, and gardens on the lower slopes—as interesting a picture as one could wish to see,” he wrote in his journal.
“Though beautiful, the sight was not exactly what I expected, for the broad surface of the lake was shut out from view by the broad surface of a hill,” Speke concluded. It would seem a simple matter of connecting the surface of Victoria Nyanza with the powerful torrent spewing forth from its northern lip. But not being able to see both the falls and the lake at the same time added a measure of doubt to the source location. Making matters worse, during his journey from Victoria Nyanza to Cairo, Speke would soon cut a tangent across the African landscape, losing sight of
the Nile for days at a time. Dick Burton would later argue that because of these discrepancies, Victoria Nyanza and the Nile were not connected. Strangely enough, many people would believe him.
Yet Speke was convinced he had his proof. “The expedition had now performed its function,” he wrote. “I saw that old father Nile without any doubt rises in the Victoria Nyanza, and as I had foretold, that lake is the great source.”
Once Speke and Grant pushed north beyond the waterfall spouting forth from Victoria Nyanza, a whole new collection of hostile tribes, religions, and customs needed to be dealt with. There was the constant daily need to feed the porters, keep the caravan happy, and follow the superlative lead of Sidi Mubarak Bombay, the flat-toothed former slave who once again embodied the definition of an explorer by showing them the way.
Speke’s first chance to tell the world about the waterfall came on March 27, 1863. He had arrived in the riverfront fortress of Khartoum, where a small garrison of British troops kept the peace. In Khartoum there was also a telegraph line, and a soldier conversant in dots and dashes more than happy to tap out a message back to London from the great explorer John Hanning Speke.
“The Nile,” Speke cabled to the RGS, “is settled.”
March 27, 1863, was an auspicious date in the history of exploration, though not one the indigenous peoples of Africa and America might ever appreciate.
On that same day, in Washington, DC, President Abraham Lincoln met with chiefs from several prominent Native American tribes. Among them were the Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche, Arapahoe, and Apache. The spoken message was a clear wish for peace between the Indian population and the newcomers of mostly European extraction who had charted, encroached upon, and resettled their lands. The unspoken message was that life in America had changed forever, thanks to the discoveries of the American West by the explorers Lewis and Clark between 1804 and 1806. Hat in hand, these proud warriors were being told in no uncertain terms that they lacked the firepower to win the war they were currently pursuing against American settlers.
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