The Purpose of Hopes And Dreams

I've heard it said many times that people without talent create their destinies with unrelenting will and perseverance.  With hard work they make their dreams come true and they make it big.  I'm just envious that they know what the hell their dream is in the first place.  I have had the drive in me to be the best that I can be since I was a small kid.  I have had many dreams over the years and have mostly made most of them come true.  As I get older the problem seems to be what the dreams are anymore.

I was thinking about this problem again today and trying to determine what the destination should be for my future.  This is when I began to realize that the achievement of the goals isn't the destination but merely milestones in the direction of travel.

Hopes and dreams, by this way of thinking, are nothing more than dangled carrots.  Your spirit is just teasing you forward in the direction you need to go.  The carrot isn't the goal.  The dream isn't the goal.  Moving up is the goal.

To illustrate this, imagine you have a horse and carriage and you are in New York City.   You have to get the carriage to Boston.  You know the way but the horse does not.  There are no reigns on the horse and all you can do is whisper to him or dangle carrots to keep him moving.  Now the journey from New York to Boston is a long way on a horse.  Dangling a carrot will probably only work for a while before the horse will realize that he isn't going to get the carrot will stop trying.  At this point you will need to give him the carrot and temp him with another.  If you give him the carrot without a proper amount of movement he will become entitled and will do less and less expecting the carrot.

This seems very frustrating and must be how God feels on a daily basis.  Now imagine that the horse realized that somehow that going to Boston was a good thing and decided to just walk there on his own watching you for guidance of which direction to turn. He could eliminate the frustration of chasing the carrot followed by the high of getting it followed by the desire for another. He could just enjoy eating the carrots when they were given to him.  And perhaps the carrots would come more frequently because they are no longer needed for bait.  The horse would get closer and closer to Boston with peace in his heart and carrots in his belly.

My favorite metaphor for life is of the mountain.  The purpose of life it to reach higher elevations in an attempt to become closer to God.  At the top of the mountain you will be above the tree line and can see life for exactly what it is about as well as the true magnificence of the heavens.  Most people spend their lives trapped in the fog and the smog down in the valley.  Dreams and goal have a very specific way of separating the crowd into those with the ambition to climb the mountain and those content with the fog.  Some dreams are way up the mountain and bring the climber a great way up while some just might get them a few feet in the right direction.  Regardless of where on the mountain the goal lives the point isn't to just reach that goal or milestone.  The goal is to get past it to the top of the mountain.

Even if you are so deep in the fog that you have no idea which way to go, start moving.  If you feel it is taking you higher then keep going.  If you are heading down hill then stop, turn around and go the other way.  

One final note on this.  Don't wait for those around you to come with you.  You may think that you are being selfish by leaving them behind but the best thing you can do for those you are close to is to show them that there is a path up this mountain and that it can be climbed.  Keep climbing. 

Life Reboot

I have this foundation to my life that I call Black Belt Mentality.  In a nutshell this means that I try to find the small mistakes that I am making in every part of my life and adjust to a version that I think is better.  This comes from teaching students and having to correct the same thing over and over.  I would tell them that they have permission and the duty to find these little mistakes before I walk around and have to point them out.

I try to apply this to the big parts of life the most like diet, exercise and personal behavior.  I keep trying to perfect the foods and portions that I eat to maximize my weight and energy while bringing as much pleasure from what I eat as possible.  If I didn't do this and just ate whatever was available in portions that seem American I would feel like crap and would blow up.

Exercise takes the same attention.  As my body gets older I have to keep from pushing it too hard in something I am not used to while also maintaining a level of fitness that will help me avoid hurting myself in my day to day job.  Oh, and trying to make it interesting and rewarding at the same time.

Behavior is a much broader area if we take into account the many side paths that my brain keeps trying to take.  I need to remember to put God first and stop thinking I am fighting alone.  I need to keep my mind at a state of peace while feeling like I am moving forward and growing.  One of my frequent statements to myself is that "this is not the me I want to be".  My goal is to live my life in peace with a smile.  To do this I need to keep the negative things away and spend as much time with the good as possible. 

Then life happens.  The holidays come and the diet gets a little out of wack.  Then the exercise slows down and stops and the bills have your head spinning.  So now today is a reboot.  I generally discourage making too many changes at once because it is very likely that you will be overwhelmed and fail.   In this case I am just getting back to the schedule that I was on before.  It can be inspiring to just hit the brakes and start fresh.

What Does Survival Mean To You?

The English language is very broad with the definitions of words.  There are some words that are spelled the same and mean different things and there are some words that are spelled different but still mean the same.  What makes this even more confusing is the experience of the reader and what a word means to them personally.  Example, if I asked you "are you happy"?  What does happy mean to you?
What does righteous mean to you?  What does wrong mean?  All of these things are subject to your own personal experiences.
I have another word for you that is even worse than that.  What does martial arts mean to you?

Right now you may be thinking mixed martial arts, kung fu, Karate Kid or a thousand different things, but what does it mean to you?  Imagine you had to fight for your life.  What skills do you have to fight?  That ultimately is your version of the martial arts.  Now, how can you train to more effective?  This is controlled by what threats you are likely to face or have already faced.  This is also controlled by your own physical and mental condition. 

The martial arts now has two meanings for you, the initial one that you thought of when I asked about what it means and the new version of reality that you have. 

Lets look at Survival with the filter of above and lets assume that there is two versions of the definition.  Version number one is probably based on shows you have seem on television or videos from the internet.  But there is another reality that is your life and how survival applies to you.  Lets see if we can identify this a little better.

Threat Assessment.  Simply, what threats are you facing?  Or, what threats might you be facing in the future based on the direction that the world is going?  Now if you are some head in the sand kind of person that just believes that everything is going to be the same as it is today then perhaps you just look at the threats that face you today.  The rest of us who can see the placement of the dominoes of life and the way they are leaning can use that to identify possible outcomes that might affect our survival.

Risk Assessment.  What can you do to about the situation and what will it cost you?  Remember that the cost isn't always money.  If you live in the city and rely on public transportation and you believe that the safest thing to do is get out of the city you have to weigh your options.  Do you buy a car and put yourself in financial crisis or do you buy some better shoes and get in shape.  One option is really good for you and the other might set you up for failure.

The martial arts are designed around the development of the mind, the body and the spirit.  In Survival Martial Arts I believe that your survival is based on your will, your skill and your gear.  In those six things, where are you the weakest? 

Survival is just another confusing word in the English language but it has a very specific meaning to you.  So today I challenge you to evaluate the threats that you face and take stock of where you are in terms of Mind, Body, Spirit, Will, Skill and Gear.