The problem with anger is that it feels good for a while and the more justified your anger is, the better it feels.
So you begin looking for new reasons to be angry, for corroboration from others, and for more justification to fuel your anger.
Eventually, anger consume you, blinding you to everything else and shrinking your world down to the size of itself.
By the time you realize your anger no longer serves you, that it stopped feeling good a long time ago, and that it brings you more pain than pleasure, you find that it is all you have left because anger is selfish; it takes everything.
You can keep your anger or your life, but not both.
We sometimes mistakenly associate our freedom with freedom from expectations.
We tell ourselves that their expectations are holding us back from being free, from doing what we want, and from being who we want because what they want from us and who they expect us to be limits our ability to have things utterly and uninhibitedly our way.
If only they knew who we are, how special we are, and how entitled we are, they would stop getting in our way, the seas would part for us, and we would proceed forth in righteousness and glory to what is rightfully ours.
Not only is this a deludedly childish and selfish way to view ourselves and the world, but it is also an extremely unrealistic way to think about life.
Just like we have expectations for other, others will inevitably have expectations for us and, if we want something from them, if we want something they have, or if they stand in between us and what we want, we are going to have to meet those expectations.
There is no way around this.
No matter how important, wealthy, or powerful we become, we will always have to face and deal with the expectations of others.
Freedom, then, is accepting this and aligning our attitude, our will, and our intentions in the direction of living up to these expectations in such a way that we are not fighting everyone and everything along the way.
As long as the expectations that others have for us are reasonable, moral, and just, we are not losing anything along the way, least of all our freedom or our integrity.
In fact, what we gain in experience and in relationships along the way will probably make our lives infinitely better in the long run anyway.
Sometimes we need to step back, regroup, and look at things from a different perspective.
Commitment to a direction, an idea, or a relationship is important if we want to be successful with it.
Nothing worthwhile is accomplished half-heartedly.
We cannot allow ourselves be so committed to one course of action, however, that we lose sight of all of the other possibilities, options, and alternatives available to us.
Over-commitment in the wrong direction is as bad as under-commitment in the right direction.
We must find a place of balance and integrity within ourselves from which we are able to move freely and stably in the best direction, understanding that the best direction may not be our original direction.
Nothing worthwhile is gained by sacrificing our own balance, integrity, or stability.
This does not mean that we live a life free of restrictions, limitations, and boundaries, only that we do not allow restrictions, limitations, and boundaries to compromise who we are.
Freedom is the ability to be our best selves, without compromise, in any and all circumstances, directions, and environments.
If the only way to move forward is by compromising our morality, we must come to accept that some battles are best left unwon.
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 & Bodyand Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.
Meditations on God 