The Path is there. Will you follow it? This thought came up for discussion during a training session. This person was all over the place mentally. You can tell he was distracted. It has been a while since he was in the Dojo.
The thought came up as he was trying to determine which way to run his kata. There are many ways to do the techniques. Some techniques follow a path that has been shown to be more successful than others. Which technique will you do? This is the same with life. There are many paths to follow. Some paths lead to different destinations. Sometimes there are different paths for the same destination. “Which path do I follow?”
Isn’t that what so many people ask? They want you to tell them what road to take. How can we? These days I like to ask “what is it that you want?”. What do YOU want to do? At some point we all must decide for ourselves. That is when we decide our path.
Going off the path
Do we allow others to take us off course? Sure, we can blame others for distracting us. The truth is, we agree to be distracted. No one can take you off course unless you agree to be taken off course. Don’t worry about going off course. As long as you have truly decided what you want, getting back on course is not very difficult.
This person took a moment and thought about the kata. Clarity came over his face, along with a smile. Interesting to observe the Peace found when the mental turmoil goes away. He said “I decided to do the kata this way. Is this correct?” I told him: “It was more important that he made a decision. How did you feel during the kata?” His response: “At peace. It became easy when I was at first confused.”
Enjoy the journey
Many have said “It is not the destination, it is the journey.” The journey follows a path. Decide your path by determining what you want. Take the first step. Then another. Pretty soon you will have made many discoveries.