Through my lens!

Imagine it’s 5 o’clock in the chilling morning of Indian winter, surrounded by countless awe-inspiring foggy farms of mustard. An 11th-class student, also an NDA aspirant, lies sleeping on his bed after studying late last night. He has two options: one is to keep sleeping on his cozy bed, or to get up and go running after doing his daily chores. But instead of sleeping, he chose to go running. He definitely had an option to relax, but he decided not to relax but to improve himself.

According to you, what is it? Is it the discipline that inspires [not motivates] him, or is his passion the driving force here? Or there’s a third possibility: he is forced to do that by his parents? And the answers for all these questions are his discipline and passion, both. It was his passion to make it to the National Defence Academy that eventually inculcated discipline in his behaviour and actions.

But why am I telling this story? Just to assure you that either passion or discipline cannot make a person successful individually. It is always the combination and coordination of those all-important 15 OLQs [Officer-like Qualities] and 16 attributes of a sanguine person—including Discipline, passion, team cohesion, social adaptability, etc.—that make him superior to others who are lacking these qualities and make him voluminously important. Also, there is a common preconceived notion among most people that only an Indian Armed Forces Officer needs these qualities. But this notion is completely vague because these qualities apply to all people who want to do something big in their lives.

Now, let us talk about some key features of passion and discipline separately, without forgetting that both are equally distinct in their own places.

Firstly, passion. What do you mean by passion? Motivation? Inspiration? Zeal to do something incredible? If you have thought of any one of these, then you are correct. Passion is an inspiration [in the long term], and motivation [in the short term] that keeps you ignited to achieve your goal(s), which in the story above is to get into NDA. Once you can awaken that passion in you, you will successfully make the journey from an afraid hedonistic aficionado to a benign, sagacious, diligent person. You will definitely see an astronomical change in your personality, I can guarantee you that. As passion makes you push your limits in a meticulously adaptive manner, which tacitly will be the main reason for your exponentially increasing personal development, science-stream students shall understand better this term.

Discipline, on the other hand, is the anchor that turns passion into reality. When passion’s initial fire dims after late-night physics revision or cold 5 AM mornings, discipline forces you to stick to the routine—whether it’s running through fog, solving 50 chemistry numericals, or practicing SSB group tasks. Discipline builds unbreakable habits, sharpens mental focus, and creates consistency that outlasts motivation slumps. For NDA aspirants, it means daily PT routines, timed mock tests, maintaining physical fitness standards, and pushing through fatigue to build officer endurance. Without discipline, passion remains a dream; with it, you forge yourself into the steel that NDA demands.