At a critical moment in The Odyssey, Odysseus tied himself to the mast of his ship because he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist steering the ship toward the beautiful sound of the Sirens. In temporarily giving up his freedom, Odysseus became the first person ever to hear the Sirens without fatally crashing into the rocks surrounding the island where they lived.

We’ve all experienced versions of this. The drama of the Sirens plays out every day. We stay late at the office a few days in a row and later, when we’re on vacation, we’re happy we did. We say no to happy hour drinks and later, when we wake up fresh and clear-headed to get a jump on the day, we’re happy we did. We pass on the dessert menu and later, when we achieve our fitness goals sooner than we expected, we’re happy we did.

The famous line from Musonius Rufus was that labor passes quickly but the fruit of labor endures. It’s the same with discipline: the vigilance is temporary, but the fruit of that vigilance can be enjoyed long after the sacrifice has been forgotten.

We think the good life is about being able to have what we want when we want it. We think we want to get everything that we want, that everything should come readily, come easily, come in plenty. No one should be so unlucky.

Eisenhower’s line was that freedom is the opportunity for self-discipline. “Once you apprehend the vacuity of a life without struggle,” the great Tennessee Williams wrote, “you are equipped with the basic means of salvation.”

Life requires trade-offs. It demands that you figure out how to work hard and trust that it will be worth it. It expects you to delay gratification and know that the reward is worth the wait. It needs you to be disciplined and self-controlled now, so that you can be free (or in Odysseus’ case: alive) to fulfill your destiny later.