Fair is Foul: How Shakespeare Taught Me the Art of Self-Discipline

I thought I lacked talent. It turns out I just lacked a system.

“When words summon shadows.”

“Fair is foul and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air.”

I stared at the page. I simply didn’t understand what it meant.

I knew the individual words. I knew what “fair” meant, and I certainly knew what “filthy” meant. But strung together in that iconic couplet? It felt like an alien language. I understood the literal contradiction — good being bad and bad being good — but the essence of it, the reason it existed, was completely lost on me.

It was November 2008 in Pakistan. The air was turning crisp, signaling the arrival of winter. I had just completed my MBA and was working in a bank, while moonlighting as a tutor for Physics and Mathematics. One evening, while my students — two brothers — were busy with their assignments, I idly picked up one of their textbooks.

It was Macbeth.

In South Asia, everyone knows the name Shakespeare, but few have truly wrestled with his work. I considered myself fairly eloquent. I wrote professional emails; I closed sales deals. I thought I knew English. But staring at Act 1, Scene 1, I felt a wave of imposter syndrome crash over me. It wasn’t just that it was difficult; it felt like I was looking at a locked door without a key.

That evening, I went home, but the “fog and filthy air” followed me. It bothered me that I couldn’t crack the code.

The Obsession

That night, a strange determination took over. I drove to a nearby market, hopping from bookstore to bookstore until I found a copy of the play.

I went home, showered, ate dinner, and sat down to read.

Again, I understood nothing.

But this time, instead of tossing the book aside, I made a pact with myself. The goal wasn’t just to read; it was to conquer.

My routine became rigid. Every night, before hitting the sack, I had to read 20 pages. It didn’t matter how tired I was or how late it got. This was 2008 — I didn’t have a smartphone distracting me every five minutes. I had a dictionary, a few helper books, and a dial-up internet connection if I got truly desperate.

Three months later, everything had changed.

I wasn’t just quoting the play; I was feeling it. I could see the layers in Banquo, the turmoil in Lady Macbeth, and the tragic unraveling of the King. I began relating the political treachery in the play to the real-life politics of my country.

I had mastered the play without a professor, a university class, or a syllabus. I did it with the only tools that actually matter:
curiosity and consistency.

A Mindset Evolved

Eventually, reading became a normal part of my life. It made me a better researcher and changed the way I think about things. I began to perceive individuals and objects in an entirely novel manner. I learned a little bit, but it was important: when demographics change, it’s normal for people to have different opinions — but it’s essential to respect and try to understand those viewpoints.

I wasn’t just interested in Macbeth anymore. I read Shakespeare’s other works — Hamlet, Othello, Julius Caesar, King Lear — and began to appreciate how he captured unfairness, ambition, and the complexities of human nature.

This curiosity led me to the ancient philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Marcus Aurelius, and later to modern thinkers like Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, George Orwell, and Paulo Coelho. Every writer left a mark on me, pushing me to confront my own behavior.

I realized something powerful: the journey itself is far more enjoyable than the destination. And embracing that process changes everything.

The Triad of Growth

We often look at successful people — writers, musicians, athletes — and assume they have a gift we lack. We tell ourselves that because we weren’t born with it, we shouldn’t bother.

But talent is often just romanticized consistency.

Through this journey of self-education, I found that what we call “talent” is actually a three-part formula:

• Discipline: Doing it when you don’t want to.

• Consistency: Doing it every single day.

• Patience: Waiting for the results to compound.

These three traits allowed a casual reader to master a Jacobean tragedy and permanently shift his approach to learning and growth.

Know Thyself

The most critical step, however, comes before the discipline.

You have to Know Yourself.

We spend so much of our lives being people-pleasers, chasing degrees we don’t want or jobs that drain us. We kill our own personalities to fit a mold. But when you identify what actually stimulates your brain — whether it’s 17th-century literature, the rhythm of music in any form, the adrenaline of sports, or the calming flow of painting — the discipline becomes easier. It stops feeling like work and starts feeling like a mission.

Maybe your spark comes from art and craft, shaping beauty with your hands, or from traveling and discovering how differently — yet beautifully — people live across diverse cultures. Perhaps it’s the logic of coding, the storytelling of photography, or simply the joy of learning something new and unexpected.

Whatever it is, follow it.

These pursuits don’t just make you “skilled”; they make you more empathetic, more resilient, more curious, and more connected to the world. They help you evolve into a person who sees life not as a straight line but as a colorful, ever-expanding landscape of ideas, people, and possibilities.

I finally understand that opening couplet:

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”

Things are not always what they seem. The “foul” struggle of late-night reading and sore fingertips was actually “fair” — it was the beautiful price of admission to a richer life.

Find your obsession.
Apply the discipline.
And let the fog lift.