Even with the best ideas and the passion to back them up, we will make very little progress without support from others.
None of us gets very far alone. We need others in order to do our best work. We do not necessarily need them for the work itself, but we need them to witness our work, to hear it, to see it, to experience it, and to decide whether or not it holds any meaning, truth, or value to them.
If our work is to have an affect on the world, it must be experienced by others. It must touch them and create change in their lives. If this change is to take, however, if it is to stick, it must do so with their consent, permission, and support.
This means that if we want to do good work that affects the change we want, we must make ourselves vulnerable. We must share our ideas and we must prepare ourselves for criticism, rejection, and disapproval because, without the risk of these, there is very little likelihood that our idea was worth having in the first place. Support succeeds, it does not precede, sharing.
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, as well as a founding member of the Severna Park and Baltimore Holistic Chamber of Commerce.
Street art photo taken by Robert Van Valkenburgh, artist unknown unless otherwise noted.
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