Be careful not to let your occupation become your identity.
Make sure there is more to who you are than what you do.
Life is unpredictable.
Your outer life can change in a single moment.
Everything you have worked for can be lost or taken from you in the blink of an eye.
If your identity is based entirely on what kind of work you do, if you can no longer do it, you will be lost.
You must, therefore, develop your inner life as much or more than your outer life, for your inner life is with you regardless of your occupation, location, or status.
YOUR INNER LIFE By Robert Van Valkenburgh Meditations of a Gentle Warrior
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Do not use your work as an excuse to ignore your life.
Work is a means to an end.
Work is not and should not be an end in itself.
We work to have a better life.
Our work allows us to provide for ourselves and our families, to take care of our health and other basic needs, and, ideally, to more fully enjoy the time we spend not working.
But there is a point of diminishing returns wherein our work begins to cost us more than it gives.
If you find yourself sacrificing your family, your health, and your joy for your work, you may have found that point.
If your work makes your life worse, you need to find different work.
We do not all have the luxury of doing what we love, but we do all have the ability to put love into what we do.
Not everyone can earn a living doing what they are passionate about.
Necessity demands that many, if not most, of us earn our livings doing things that have very little to do with that which bring us personal joy and fulfillment.
We often have to settle for work that is simply work.
We trade our labor, skill, and knowledge for money, but we must find happiness elsewhere.
Still, there is no reason that our occupation, the thing that occupies so much of our time, energy, and attention, should be an empty task that we perform without care.
Every act throughout our day is one we choose to do with or without love.
Our work is no different.
‘Working With Love’ by Robert Van Valkenburgh
HOLISTIC BUDO: As in Life, so too in Budo. As in Budo, so too in Life.
At some point, we must decide who, not necessarily what, we want to be.
It is quite common to ask children what they want to be when they grow up, but perhaps this is the wrong way to think about life.
While our occupations obviously have a powerful affect on the direction that our lives take, they are not and should not be our life’s primary defining characteristic.
Of course, none of us wants to end up in a career that we hate. Our occupations, after all, occupy a great number of our waking hours and time wasted is time lost.
Likewise, we need to be able to pay our bills, provide for ourselves and our families, and have enough left over so that we can pursue our avocations, hobbies, and passion projects.
But, if we do not know who we are and who we want to be, intellectually, morally, emotionally, and spiritually, we will have no gauge by which to determine if we are on the right course or not.
All too often, people find themselves mid-life questioning their path, their choices, and the ways in which they have spent their years up to that point and, perhaps, if instead of focusing on career, we focused more on character, this would not be the case.
Skills, knowledge, passion, and ambition are all important, but none of these make up for poor character, pliable morality, or unreliability.
The world does not really need more doctors, firefighters, or ballerinas per se.
What the world needs is more good people who do good work, regardless of what field they happen to seek out or fall into.
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 