Your attention is valuable.
Do not give it away carelessly.
Once given away, you cannot get it back.
Focus, then, on that which matters most.
You will not regret giving your attention to your dreams, your health, and the people you love.
You will regret, however, giving your attention to distraction when that which matters most needs you.
Life is short.
Your attention is a non-renewable resource.
Be wary of to what and to whom you give it.
If you live your life in a way that makes you happy, you will inevitably disappoint some people.
This should not be your goal, but it will happen.
There will be times when you have to choose between what others want or expect from you and what you need to do in order to be happy.
Choose happiness.
Of course there are some relationships within which you will have to compromise and wherein your attention to the needs of others will be required, but beyond these, you have an obligation to yourself to pursue that which brings you joy and fulfillment.
Regrets are largely optional and your goal should be to live your life in such a way that you die with as few regrets as possible.
No one else can do this for you and no one else will choose this for you.
Choose happiness or live with regret.
Resist the temptation to settle for less than you are truly capable of.
Life will give you an infinite number of excuses, obstacles, and distractions to take you off course.
You have to learn to see these for the diversions that they are.
Living up to your potential will require discipline, focus, and dedication.
Your journey will be lonely, frustrating, and even boring at times, but these feelings are nothing compared to the regret you will feel if you settle for being someone you are not.
You have a purpose and a calling; you need only find out what it is and pursue it like your life depends on it because it does.
We may find ourselves wishing we could go back in time to change some decision we made in the past so that we do not have to face the consequence of that decision in the present.
Obviously, this is not possible.
What is possible, however, is to learn from the pain of our present fear and to use that pain to fuel better decision-making in the future.
But before that can happen, we must face the consequences of our decisions and take the necessary action to overcome our fear in this present moment of vulnerability.
Simply because we have committed a lot of time and energy to something does not mean that we should continue to do so.
When we find that our efforts are no longer producing the results we want, the best choice is not necessarily more effort.
Instead, we may need to pause, regroup, and redirect our energies elsewhere.
More effort in a fruitless direction is worse than effort wasted, it is opportunity lost.
By focusing on that which is no longer working, we will not see the world of possibilities around us.
We do not get our time back, so we should not waste what we have.
Likewise, we also should not pine with regret over the time we have already spent.
To do so is to steal from our future.
‘Focus And Opportunity’ by Robert Van Valkenburgh
HOLISTIC BUDO: As in Life, so too in Budo. As in Budo, so too in Life.
Meditations on God 