When you look at someone you love, do you see the ways in which they are being their best or the ways in which they are failing to meet your expectations, and perhaps even their own?
In our own ways, we are all trying. Some of us have more success than others and some of us have an easier time at it than others, but we are all doing some version of our best. We should treat each other accordingly.
This requires patience. It requires reflection. It requires compassion.
If we want to see past our expectations for another person, our often selfish desires for who we want them to be to us and for us, and the ways in which they have or will inevitably fall short, we must be willing to always be the better person.
Being the better person has nothing to do with superiority, arrogance, or self-righteousness. Instead, even when we perceive ourselves as having been slighted or wronged, we must remain humble, gracious, and forgiving.
We must remember that, in our own ways, we are all flawed and broken. If we are at all trying to live, we will fail in some way. Each and every one of us is perfectly imperfect.
Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.
Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
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