When another person tells you that your idea won’t work, it may be because they are afraid that it will.
We should not take all feedback at face value. We must always consider the source, the source’s history, and the source’s agenda. It is very rare to find someone who is objective and transparent enough to have an opinion on our lives and our dreams untainted by his or her own ego.
Keep in mind, however, that the same is true for us. We, ourselves, are not exempt from adding our own fears, desires, and prejudices to our opinions and advice for others. As much as we fear failure, for ourselves and others, we may fear success even more because success, like evolution, requires change.
Quite often, the fear of success, and the change that comes along with it, is so strong that we sabotage opportunities for growth in ourselves and those around us simply so that things stay as they are. The problem with this is that stagnation is not benign. Fearing change is fearing life itself and that’s no way for us or the people we care about to live.
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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