Life is not without its challenges, but there is no sense in making it more difficult in your imagination.
Anticipating the worst does not prevent it from coming to pass.
What it does do, however, is ruin your experience of the present.
You simply cannot enjoy your life now if you spend all of your time anticipating a future of conflict, tragedy, and calamity, a future that may never arrive.
Life will not always go smoothly and terrible things will happen along the way, but nothing is made better through worrying.
Focus on what is in front of you, on what you have the power to affect or to change, and let the future worry about itself.
We never know how our influence will reverberate through the lives of the people we come into contact with.
We do not know how far-reaching and long-lasting our presence and our actions will be in the lives of others.
For this reason, it is important that we try our best to put good into the world.
Our words, deeds, and influence may last an eternity through other people.
We have no way of knowing where our impact will end.
It certainly does not end with us.
Of that much we can be certain.
We should keep this in mind as we go throughout our days.
Everything we do and say may actually last forever.
Of course, we will make mistakes.
We will cause pain, discord, and discomfort from time to time.
But, at least if we think beyond this moment, beyond our finite and flawed selves, we can try to make positive change in the world of the future, one word and one action at a time.
Our legacies are built one decision, one action, and one interaction at a time.
Every day, from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep, we have a multitude of choices to make, so many choices, in fact, that there is no possible way to be right all of the time. Often, the best we can do, with the limited amount of information, knowledge, and time we have, is to try to do what is right. Even defining what is right, ethically, morally, and socially, is a series of choices that must be weighed against our own beliefs, circumstances, and cultural context.
Life is complicated. No one is perfect. We do our best.
None of this excuses us, however, from being accountable for our decisions. The onus is on us to make as many choices as we can, from moment to moment, consciously, intentionally, and responsibly. All of our decisions, all of our actions, and all of our interactions have an effect on others and the world around us, now and for a long time to come, whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not.
Who we are now and what we do now shapes ours and everyone else’s future. This has never not been true. Our legacy is a choice, every choice.
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 (artist unknown, unless otherwise noted).
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“The most important thing is to teach your kids to be optimists—to train them to be optimists—because without that, you’re lost. With the ability to see the silver lining, to see the benefits of even a very dire situation, you can at least look for and see solutions. And if you conversely have a pessimistic lens, you could look at the same situation and see only problems.” —Mike Maples to Tim Ferriss
Optimism is a childlike state, an outlook on life that is rooted in a certain amount of blissful or perhaps even willful naiveté. It is the perspective that, one way or another, things will always work out, that, no matter how far down we go, there is always an upside. Optimism is the ability to find hope in the hopeless, light in the darkness, and opportunity in emptiness.
Life is not always great, it does not always go smoothly, and it certainly does not always go as we planned it. As children, all we see is hope and possibility, but, as we get older and have more experiences, experiences that hurt us, frighten us, and cause us worry, pain, anger, and grief, we are given many reasons to be pessimistic and cynical. To remain optimistic through all of this, in spite of all of this, becomes a choice.
We will all have troubles, trials, and even tragedies in our lives, but we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our loved ones, and we owe it to the future we will create though our mindset and our actions based on that mindset to remain hopeful and to create hopefulness in others. As adults, optimism is the conscious choice to see the world like a child, to look for the bright side, to see the world as a place of color and joy, and to add light, smiles, and laughter to every situation and relationship we find ourselves in. It is up to us, each and every day, to embrace the childlike state that is optimism and create the world we envision and hope for.
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.
‘Dress and Scar’ artwork by Ana
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Meditations on God 