Our ideas are only as good as their execution.
We may have great ideas, but if we fail to act on them, we will never know.
Then again, our ideas may be terrible or they may need some tweaking, but, again, if we fail to act on them, we will never truly know.
An idea, itself, has no real, inherent value.
It is the action inspired by the idea and the resultant change produced by that action which gives an idea its worth.
Ideas can, therefore, be measured in the change they create.
If an idea creates positive change, in whatever way we measure and define that, the idea can be considered to have positive value.
If, on the other hand, an idea creates negative change, based on whatever subjective or objective criteria we have chosen for measurement, that idea has negative value.
We must keep in mind that the change created by an idea, even when positive, is not always going to be the change we were looking for.
Once brought into the world, an idea may create positive change in ways that are vastly different from the change we were hoping to create through it.
This is quite alright.
Our desire, after all, is just another idea, the value of which can only be known through action.
We can always try again.
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.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.
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