Category: Buddhism & Philosophy

Resolutions Aren’t Meant For Once A Year…

Well, here it is, folks! The last day 0f 2024. As my day dwindles on, I’m found thinking back on the past year and the things I’ve experienced, the things I’ve accomplished and the things I’ve wished for. I’ve had some happy times, some less than happy times and times when I wondered what it was actually all about. For most people, the New Year holiday represents a new start, a fresh beginning and a time to make resolutions for a better year. For me, it’s just another Wednesday. And here’s why…

When New Year’s Day hits, it’s usually the time when most people decide on resolutions to change the overall tone of their lives. These resolutions come in many forms. While some of the most common ones include things like more exercise, dieting or cutting out vices like alcohol or gambling, some can be on the more wholesome side, like reading more books, spending more time outdoors or doing at least one new thing every week. While all of this is totally well and good, the statistical majority of people who enter into a New Year’s resolution will typically give up and/or falter in their resolution within a few months. If they last that long.

This begs the question: why bother? This failure is a known fact to most people and yet, most people will still start the New Year off with, “This year, I will…” While it may sound strange coming from me, being the guy who usually promotes having goals and achieving them, I can’t help but think that perhaps a single day of the year set out as a holiday is NOT the best time to be making commitments to something else. And one shouldn’t wait UNTIL New Year’s to make said commitment. I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve heard say things like “oh, I’ll cut down on sweets in the New Year,” or “I’ll start getting fit in January as my New Year’s resolution.”

There are a lot of reasons why people give up or quit their resolutions within a few months. One reason is that the holidays are probably the worst time for the year for people over-eating, drinking and lounging around watching Christmas movies and doing fuck all. It’s kind of hard to jump from that and go into a new diet or try to get yourself moving in any efficient way. Another reason, especially if your resolutions is fitness-oriented, is that it’s hard to hit the ground running in January, considering it’s usually followed by the coldest months of the year (at least here in Canada). The human body is at its lowest energy point and focusing solely on staying dry and warm. Sometimes, the drive to keep pushing physically just isn’t there.

Lastly, many people will drop their resolutions because they simply aren’t seeing results. The inherent problem with this is that fitness and health is an ongoing journey, not a destination. If your goal is to increase muscle or lose weight, it can take months or even years to achieve what you’re seeking. We live in a world of immediate gratification and most people don’t like to wait for things. So by March or April, people can become disillusioned with their goals and simply give up. Viewed through that lens, those folks should be grateful they don’t have Type-1 Diabetes; that shit never ends.

My point is, don’t wait until New Year’s to start improving upon yourself. Start today. The New Year is nothing. It’s not a “fresh” start. It isn’t the beginning of something new. It’s just another day. Simply another date on the calendar. Your life starts every day. THAT’s where your resolution begins. Not on a holiday, not as a special occasion but as a conscious decision to make the change. After all, life is like a book. We all know how the story begins and how it ends. It’s up to you how the chapters in between get written. Food for thought… Happy New Year. ☯️

Your Opinion Of Me Is None of My Business…

I saw something online recently that I really wish I had saved at the time, because it makes it really hard to shared a link or explain where I found something without doing so. But given how flighty I am at the best of times, sprinkled with a fine dust of ADHD and the occasional finger of whiskey thrown into the mix, it’s a surprise that I can write coherently at all. But yet here we are. The point is, I recently read a post somewhere that may or may not have been quoted from some celebrity, that read something to the tune of “what other people say about me is none of my business.”

This struck a pretty deep chord with me. Most of us spend so much time worrying about what other people may say or think about us, almost to the point where it becomes debilitating. Let’s look at a small example. When you’re about to leave the house in the morning to go run errands, the odds are good that you’ll grab a shower, put on deodorant, brush your hair and dress appropriately, not only to your local’S social standard but appropriate to the weather. While some of this makes sense for hygiene reasons, a lot of it is driven by societal expectations and how we feel people may perceive us.

We’re not just guilty of the phenomenon itself but also of encouraging it. Without even considering it, how many times have you been at a large retail location and seen someone and thought “holy fuck, they left the house that way???” while we tend to believe our thoughts are our own and are private, all it takes is a sideways glance or disgusted look to let that person know what those “private” thoughts may be. For the most part, this isn’t something we can prevent; we’re only human and we can guard our thoughts only so far. Although minding our thoughts is an important step in preventing further suffering on our own part. Jus’ sayin’…

The bigger challenge comes from letting go of what OTHERS may think or say about you. If you get word that one of your colleagues thinks you’re an absolute asshole, it’s likely to elicit an emotional response. The key takeaway is to ask oneself, does it really matter? What this other person thinks or says about you is not a reflection on who you are and shouldn’t alter how you view yourself. They’re free to have their own views and thoughts without it necessarily affecting you. Think, “I can only control my words, not how you interpret them” but in reverse.

What others’ opinion of you may be is none of your business. It won’t change your life, your situation and it shouldn’t affect your overall goals. And putting such things out of your mind is an important step towards eliminating self-suffering and being a happier, more fulfilled person. Food for thought… ☯️

Merry Christmas

Once again we’ve come to that time of year. There’s snow on the ground, a chill in the air and people take pride in decorating their homes, Christmas trees and laying gifts at their base. When I was a boy, the growing anticipation and excitement of Christmas was palpable. My mother would cook and bake up a storm. As the eldest daughter of seven siblings, Christmas was almost always hosted at our home. There would be the opening of “just one gift” on Christmas Eve. Because my mother’s side of the family were Catholic, we always had midnight mass. So I would usually struggle to stay awake klong enough to get through a church service. While I would have loved to have torn into gifts when we got home, it would usually be all I could manage to fall into bed.

The following morning would be a flood of food, family and raucous fun. I would get to see aunts, uncles and my grandparents. We would open presents, share cards and enjoy each other’s company. It was loud and tiring. Not in a bad way, mind you. But there was a measurable heat in the home, considering the number of people present. I’ve never been much of one for crowds, even as a child. By early afternoon, I would usually retreat to my room with my stash of presents to open and play with everything. It was always a glorious day. Some of my best memories include getting He-Man’s Castle Grayskull, my original Cabbage Patch Kid (I can’t remember his name) and even the first year I got the original Nintendo GameBoy when it came out in the early 90’s. I must have spent countless hours on Super Mario Land.

Life has changed for me significantly since those early Christmases. Gifts generally hold very little meaning for me, preferring a quiet day at home with my wife and sons. While I still observe the tradition of giving gifts for their sake, the value and the real gift for me is knowing I have a safe home, warm environment and a loving wife and sons that are tolerable. Kidding, they’re a’ight… But seriously, at some point one must come to realize the real value of life and what truly is a gift, is knowing that you never have to be alone (unless you want to). Sitting on the couch watching Home Alone or smelling some Christmas baking while knowing you can hug your toddler or talk video games with your oldest means far more to me than anything wrapped one could receive.

I’ve been lucky enough that I’m in a position in life that I could take the week off from work this week. Not everyone can be so lucky. yet another gift that means far more. Being able to stay home and engage in some self-care and spend further time with my wife is my real gift this year. Hopefully, y’all have something similar that make you just as rich as I am. Money and gifts mean nothing. It’s the people in my life, the ones who made me a husband, made me a father, that matter during Christmas. So to all of you out there, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and best wishes to you and your family, regardless of what traditions or holidays you may be celebrating during this time of year. Be safe, stay warm and remember what’s most important during this time of year. 🎄

Can Closure Be Too Little, Too Late?

What is closure? In the context I’ll be using it, closure refers to gaining a sense of peace, understanding and emotional release that comes from gaining understanding about certain events in our lives. For example, people will often get closure from having that after-breakup conversation with someone they were involved with. That’s only one example but it’s a pretty common one and serves to illustrate the point I’m getting at for today’s post. It stands to reason that closure can come in the most interesting ways at the most unexpected time.

Just a few short years ago, I had the opportunity to connect with someone from my past where I was able to discuss how much of a dick I was through my teen years. It would be decades before I would come to realize that many of the symptoms caused by Type-1 Diabetes was the root cause of most of the isues I caused for myself in my teens. This isn’t and shouldn’t be an all-encompassing excuse of course but it did lend itself to how I was almost universally in a bad mood and treated others poorly. I cost myself several friendships and relationships during my youth because I couldn’t reconcile my disease with proper management. But I’m glad I got closure on some of those issues and the people I’ve spoken to were gracious enough to show some undertanding.

From my side of things, there’s much closure I often feel I’m owed by many individuals who have wronged me over the years. In 2018, my career and my life took a left turn. The only thing worse than having someone wrong you in life, is having someone accuse you of something that puts your entire life in jeopardy. This is what happened to me, back in 2018. I found myself in an unfortunate set of circumstances that I would have never imagined being in. I won’t get into all the gritty details in this post but it did lead me to change the entire course of my life, my career and my view on others and how I’m treated by them. Let’s just say that all things considered, life is pretty good right now and I can’t exactly complain, but there’s a stain on my soul that may never heal as a result of what some others have done to me.

While I really want to tell the story and explain how I came about getting some closure on this issue, for reasons that should be understandable, I really shouldn’t be naming people or referring to specific situations. Not all of this is just MY story to tell. And it would be wrong of me to tell the part that isn’t mine. So I’ll stick to what I can say. Recently, I was out at a work event with everyone from the organization that I work at. It was a pretty good event and it included a tour for the entire staff of the venue we were in. As we were walking the site, we came around a corner that had a security guard kiosk and imagine my surprise at seeing one of the involved parties in the events of 2018 that altered my life forever.

I recognized him immediately, although I wasn’t very surprised at the fact that he didn’t recognize me. After all, it had been half a decade and I had a full face of facial hair whereas I would have been clean shaven back when he knew me. Once the group had cleared, I walked up and greeted him. He was taken aback when he realized who I was. The conversation was congenial enough, as we discussed where we were both explained where we were currently working and what had been happening in our respective lives since the events of 2018. It was a great conversation and I even got to introduce him to my current boss, given that the individual in question was indirectly my boss in my previous career.

As my group moved on to other sections of the site, he was peaking to others who weren’t part of my group, so I moved on. When the day was over and all my staff were leaving the site, I decided I wanted to seek out the individual so that I could shake his hand and say goodbye. When I found him doing his rounds, something happened that I wouldn’t have, and wasn’t expecting. He brought up the past and admitted that I got a raw deal. He explained that he felt I never should have had the accusations made against me and that the organization didn’t deal with it the way they could have. He told me that he always remembered and appreciated the way I came in to work my modified assignments with such enthusiasm and professionalism, there were days when he didn’t believe I was someone dealing with the situation I was in. He felt that other members should have followed my example.

These revelations hit me like a ton of bricks. While I agreed with everything he said, it shocked me to my core to hear him say it. Until that moment, no one from my previous career had admitted that I was treated badly or that the events in question shouldn’t have happened. I know that a lot of people would say that the words were too little, too late. That those things should have been brought up at the time in an effort to mitigate the damage caused to my life and my career. But for some reason, hearing this from him lifted a weight off my shoulders that I had become so accustomed to that I didn’t even know it was there. It was a very special kind of closure that I didn’t know I needed. And for that, I will be forever grateful to him.

Don’t be afraid to seek out that closure. Some of the bad periods of your life could be easily reconciled if you’re willing to seek the answer. Sometimes this might mean saying you’re sorry. Sometimes, it may simply mean giving others the opportunity to say they’re sorry. In any event, closure can be good. It shouldn’t be sold short. After all, whatever can be done to reduce the suffering in one’s life is good, right? Food for thought… ☯️

No One Style Can Rule Them All…

One of the biggest pet peeves I have with the martial arts is the in-fighting among styles. Generally speaking and realistically, everyone always assumes that their style is the best, often choosing to point out what they see wrong with a neighbouring style as opposed to possibly absorbing the aspects that may not only be right, but many also be an addition to their overall tool belt. Some of this is simply loyalty, which on its face, is not a bad thing. But when you belittle or denigrate other styles, you water us all down. And that is not a good thing.

First and foremost, a little background on my own training is very important. My main style is Uechi Ryu Okinawan karate. The reason I say main style, is because I studied various martial arts in my youth and many styles of each, in order to land on Uechi Ryu. And I’ve written about this in previous posts; finding a dojo and style that fits for you is a very subjective journey and begins and ends with you. Too often, I’ve seen students convince their friends to come train, only to have the friend phone it in because they really don’t enjoy it. So an important first aspect is, if you don’t like it, don’t stick around. You’re not just wasting your time, you’re wasting the time of the Sensei and instructors that could be assisting the other students. But I digress…

It’s important to be committed to one style. Sensei used to tell me, “one religion, one love, one style.” And the reason behind this is pretty simple. You can’t master one thing while simultaneously studying four others. Only through focus, commitment and dedication can you grow and progress within your training and move towards whatever goals you may have set for yourself. But while you’re busy carrying your tool box around, keep in mind that you should always leave room for some new tools. As the old saying goes, it’s difficult to fill a cup that is already overflowing.

In recent years, I’ve had the opportunity to train in a few different karate dojos. And something that has continued to amaze me is the difference in technique and methods, even for simple things that should be straightforward. Let’s take a front kick as an example. A front kick is a front kick, right? One would be inclined to think so. In my style, you begin by bring the knee up to make a 90-degree bend in the leg, followed by pushing out and striking with the big toe. The results is a deep, penetrating kick that can devastate the spleen and soft tissues. In a style I recently trained with, their front kick fires straight out from the standing position and the strike is performed with the ball of the foot.

So, which method is better? That’s the important question. So what should one do? Critique the other style for doing it wrong? Or open one’s mind to accept that perhaps there’s a different way? Personally, I’ve always been taught that chambering your kick prior to executing is important as it allows you the flexibility of changing the kick prior to execution. For example, I can flow from a front kick and alter to a roundhouse kick with little difficulty. But the other method could arguably save valuable seconds in its execution. And there’s no denying you have less chance of breaking your toes by using the ball of the foot as opposed to the big toe.

It’s important to remember that martial arts is a lot like falling flakes of snow. In nature, no two snowflakes are alike. Each one is different and unique. This is because as they fall each flake is subjected to wind current and moisture in the air that causes their crystals to form in a unique manner that’s never replicated twice. But ultimately, it’s all snow. The same can be said for martial arts. As it progresses and grows, each style develops in its own unique way, with its own techniques, methods and perspectives. But ultimately, it’s all martial arts.

So while you should stay committed to one style as your core, take the happy medium approach. Allow yourself the opportunity to be open-minded and learn something new. See the possibilities in the styles you visit as opposed to resisting the aspects you don’t agree with. The result will be a better equipped tool box in your overall self-defence repertoire. At some point, this inevitably becomes the only way to continue to grow. Food for thought… ☯️

Keep Your Finger Off The Trigger…

Ah, triggers! For almost fifteen years, I kept the title of today’s post at the forefront of my mind, as a mantra, during my law enforcement career. Obviously in this context, a trigger is referring to a small device that releases a spring of some sort to set off a mechanical function, like pulling the trigger for a gun. But the actual meaning of a trigger for the purposes of today’s post, is something that may spark negative thoughts or emotions and cause the a nice cornucopia of reactions from the person who is “triggered,” including anger, anxiety, fear or sadness.

The thing about triggers is that everyone has them. In recent years, there’s been significant headway made in relation to people’s mental health and how to address it. Part of that is having individuals identify and recognize their triggers and to know how to deal with them. While that can be significantly important in terms of one’s personal health and growth, there are very important detail that comes to mind that many not be popular with folks but I promise it isn’t intended to offend; it’s simply a truth: your triggers are not my problem.

So, what do I mean with that last statement? Simply put and as I mentioned earlier, everyone has triggers. However, and as time has gone by, people seem to be inclined to believe that you should know what their triggers may be and to avoid them. This is categorically false and is a logical impossibility. For example, if we’re sitting at the office in the middle of a meeting, how am supposed to know that you’re allergic to the sound of paper (that’s a real thing, you can Google it)?

My point is that if you tell me about this particular quirk of yours and I decide to be an asshole and do something that triggers you in spite of what you’ve revealed, shame on me. If you get triggered by something I say or do and you lose your absolute shit on me despite the fact I didn’t know, shame on you! No one person can be expected to know what may offend or trigger you. It is, in fact, your responsibility to take a moment to tell someone, “Sorry, but I’m not comfortable with that.” Otherwise, it’s kind of hard to hold the offending party to task for it.

While it could be easily understood that some people may actually not be comfortable with revealing their triggers in all circumstances, that doesn’t resolve the issue you may face if someone triggers you without being aware of it. That person should be held responsible for your reaction, especially if you never revealed the issue to them. It comes back to the old saying, “I can only control my words; not how you react to them.” By that same token, I can only control my ability not to offend or trigger you based on what you choose to share with me. It all comes down to you. Food for thought… ☯️

The Most Unlikely Calorie Burn…

I had someone ask me the question a long timeworn doing a workout recently that had me quite floored, considering my exercise routine is almost non-existent lately. As a matter of routine, I usually spend a period of time post-workout in meditation, as it tends to lower one’s heart rate, lower blood pressure and allow me some recuperative time before grabbing a snack and hitting the showers. For the most part, I tend to save my meditation sessions in my RunKeeper app, not only because the option is available, but it helps me keep track, which is the entire point of the app. I noticed, not for the first time, that the app calculated that I had burned 31 calories during my meditation. This raised the important question: does one burn calories while meditating?

The very short, high level answer without much research is yes, yes you do. I can say this with some confidence as it’s a basic premise that any movement of the body will burn calories. And even as simple an act as breathing or normal bodily functions will burn calories. This doesn’t mean it can be substituted for actual diet and exercise, of course. Otherwise, every couch potato in the world would look like fuckin’ Jean-Claude van Damme in his prime.

For example, I apparently burn about 46 calories for 30 minutes of meditation. Alternatively, I would burn a little over 300 calories for cycling for the same amount for time. Those numbers will vary based on age, weight and how far you travel on the bike during those 30 minutes, of course. But it makes for a significant difference. There was a study released somewhere back in 2016 that estimated that the average person burns about 4.5 calories per minute from meditating. I can’t seem to find the article I read it in. Really have to start saving some of this shit as I find it.

According to an article posted by WebMD, states “meditation […] can lower high blood pressure. It can also help you manage stress, which drives some people to eat.” Disappointingly, the article doesn’t provide a great deal of any thing more related on how meditating can burn calories but rather goes into details on how one should meditate. So there doesn’t seem to be a lot of research or information surrounding whether the action of meditating itself burns any measurable calories or rather has the after effect of lower blood pressure and better control over eating, which brings in less calories.

Ultimately, it’s one of those things that’s just up in the air and there isn’t much to support using it as an actual calorie burning tool. Meditation should first and foremost be used as a means of cantering oneself, finding one’s inner peace and balance and as a supplement to reducing the suffering in one’s life. If you should so happen to burn a few calories while doing it, that’s just a pinch of calorie-free icing on a gluten-free cake. Food for thought…☯️

The Rusted Tools In Your Box…

The world has evolved into an environment where people will typically pick up the phone and call someone if they need something in their homes repaired. Everything from our vehicles, our property and even our bodies are typically repaired or healed by outside individuals. And more and more, as time goes by, it seems that this is the way of the world. But it wasn’t always so. I grew up with the remands of the generations that kept their own tools, worked on their own cars and repaired their own homes.

During my youth, I got to experience the watering down of this societal trend. My grandfather had a basement full of tools and a pretty comprehensive workshop. As a carpenter and a blacksmith, you can still see some of his handy work floating around my home town as things created back then were built to last, even when they were made of wood. The thing is, he used all of his tools daily, and kept them all clean, oiled and maintained as needed otherwise ensure that they lasted and were of use for their intended purpose.

Next, we have my father. A well-meaning man, he was never very handy with repairing things himself. Put him in front of a computer and he’d turn into an operator from the fuckin’ matrix… But he wasn’t very adept at getting past anything more than hammering a nail to hang a photo frame. Having been directly raised in that environment, I fall very much into this same category. My point is he had a number of very handy tools available within the home. The problem is he never used them.

The result is that within a very short number of years, those tools began to rust, corrode and erode, rendering them all but useless and in some cases completely destroyed. There was nothing more heartbreaking when I had to go home to close down my mother’s apartment than having to scrap a bunch of tools that had succumbed to the passage of time and had become absolutely useless. I mean, I wouldn’t have been able to fly a bunch of steel tools back to Saskatchewan anyway, but it was still a shameful waste. Those tools would have been better served in the hands of someone who would have used them and maintained them properly.

So believe it or not, this post is actually related to karate and the martial arts. So I’m going to bring us back to THAT. Learning different styles and techniques has often been compared to having multiples tools in your toolbox. Much like a traditional tool (hold your jokes, I’m not referring to myself), if you don’t use your techniques and train consistently, you’ll get rusty. You’ll become ineffective. Your tools will basically be useless. Only if you maintain them and work with them, will your avail;able tools continue to serve you well and protect you, in the event you need them.

Somehow, in my head, I always feel as though I could be responsive and hold my own in the event of a fight. At least part of that is true because the knowledge is still there. The light willing, that’ll never go away. So knowing how to protect and defend myself, knowing how to execute techniques and perform my katas and train effectively… Those are the things that never go away. But like the hammer that sits in the toolbox for twenty years, it may still be able to hammer a nail but it won’t keep the rust from setting in. The same can be said of us. Train hard, train consistently and keep your tools maintained. As the old saying goes, you don’t stop karate and get old; you get old when you stop doing karate. Food for thought… ☯️

The Ontario Odyssey: The Aftermath…

My wife and I recently travelled to Toronto for a work-related business trip. Since my lovely wife celebrated a birthday close to that date, we felt it would be a nice trip for her to join on, since we would have our evenings to enjoy each other’s company and a much-needed break from our little ones. We were lucky enough that their grandmother was able to come spend a few days with them so that our trip could be accommodated. This would be the first time my wife would actually stay and wander within the City of Toronto.

I should preempitvely start this post by mentioning that I have no inherent dislike or hatred for large cities in general. After all, having travelled the likes of New York ( 8million people) and Tokyo (about 13 million people), Toronto is a far cry sitting at only about 3 million people. Still, that’s a marked departure from our home city of only about 250,000 people and the difference in population exposed us to some very harsh realities of modern society at its worst. Here are some of the highlights…

Our trip started decently enough, albeit with a 30-minute flight delay on our departure. While this didn’t affect our 1-leg direct flight, some of the passengers connecting in Toronto were visibly nervous and upset with the delay. Understandably so. While not seated together (we booked separately as my job covered my flight cost), our flight was uneventful and we landed in Toronto in late afternoon. The differences in our home environment and the big city were immediately evident upon trying to get through the terminal.

Majoratively and for the most part, I’ve noticed that people in the big city will go absolutely out of their way to avoid eye contact with others. While this is a personal choice and fine in concept, the practice is a bit more problematic. Especially when you’re in a large crowd. As we were walking at a rushed pace to find a cab, I had to repeatedly ask people to bring their eyes up as most people either had their eyes down on their phone or would simply walk right into others by virtue of not making eye contact. Just to be clear, I’m not of the impression that it’s everyone else’s job to get out of my way. But at least have the decency to keep your eyes up and contribute to the flow of foot traffic instead of being a hindrance. This would be common sense but I guess if sense were common, there wouldn’t be a term for it.

We stepped out of the terminal into. 36-degree summer heat. The sweat immediately bloomed on my forehead and the dizziness from the heat kicked in immediately. Exhausted and harassed by the crowds, we were quite happy to get to the hotel and check in. Not wanting to exhaust ourselves further, we opted to dine at the bistro located within the hotel, where I enjoyed a very lovely gourmet burger and some crispy fries. It was a nice ending to a day’s travel. We retired to the room and unceremoniously passed out shortly thereafter.

The next morning saw me deal with day 1 of my meetings, followed by an evening of dining with the group at an organized dinner. The menu was too extensive to get into, quite honestly, and the food and wine flowed freely, which made for an excellent evening of conversation, food and relaxation. The following day saw my meetings end around the noon hour. With the second day of conferences completed, we now had the remainder of the day to ourselves and decided to venture into the downtown core to shop and explore. This is where the issues began…

Besides being misdirected to a shopping centre we didn’t want by a “helpful” taxi driver, the heat basically floored us and sapped all life from us. By the time we reached the downtown core, we experienced the full gamut of human ignorance and indifference for one’s fellow man. Walking like a flood of angry badgers and completely oblivious to other people in their path or attempting to walk through, the population continued on the almost religious adherence to avoiding eye contact and willingly walking into others. Despite some verbal attempts, I even had a couple of occasions where I had to hold a had up to prevent someone from walking face-to-face into me. I’m surprised I didn’t get into a fight, to be honest.

Our overall downtown trip was not only disappointing but was enough of make us realize that populated city centres are not our thing. We begrudgingly made our way back to our hotel and once again dined in the main floor bistro, as it was convenient and easy. While we were still ultimately happy at having had some private time to spend together, the overall experience that was Toronto was not ideal. For us. Just to be clear, it wasn’t ideal for us. But we still had the opportunity for good conversation, some fine meals and the opportunity to travel together. That still tips the scales to the positive side.

The lesson for anyone out there reading my little rant right now, is that we live in a world of continuously evolving technology and as it carries on, we get more and more immersed in this technology. We ignore the real world in favour of burying our face in screen where we suddenly become brazen, outspoken and even quasi-offensive (or sometimes flu-blown offensive). But yet in the real world, we ignore the people around us and pretend they’re not there, even in a large crowd. In many ways, this is quite sad.

Let’s just say that I’m quite happy living in an environment that has a little population as it does. Both my wife and I are from towns with a population of a few thousand. Neither one of us can stand large crowds or millions of people. Despite this, we try to accommodate living in the real world because that’s where we all exist. But I won’t lie when I say we were quite happy getting back to our little city and making it to our quiet home in our little suburb. ☯️

A Belt Is Just A Belt…

I still vividly remember the first night I stepped into Sensei’ dojo. I was young, impressionable yet still chock full of sarcasm and quasi-narcissism. However, I was extremely aware of my own reality and recognized that I needed something life-altering in order to keep myself alive. Karate turned out to be the path towards that goal. After that first night, it would only get better. That’s not to say there wasn’t a significant amount of literal blood, sweat and tears. But I was willing to work at it and do what had to be done to reach my goals.

As I began to grow and progress within the dojo, I started to take notice and recognize the different belt ranks and how they seemed to play a role in the overall flow of the dojo. Generally speaking and for most people, black belt is usually the ultimate goal for the students. Ironically, achieving black belt was never ACTUALLY one of my goals, although I would eventually achieve it in early 2002. It would be a turning point for me and a significantly important day in my life and my martial arts journey.

One phenomenon that I’ve come to realize over the years is that the majority of students who stick with it long enough to reach black belt soon quit afterwards. For me, I never actually permanently stepped away from karate, although I can admit there have been times in my life where I’ve taken a hiatus. Such a break is never inherently a bad thing; one sometimes needs to evaluate one’s life in order to rot determine next steps. But the one thing I never did is hang up my belt permanently. And such a thing should not be done. Although addressed in different ways in different styles, Sensei always said that passing black belt was a student’s way of formally asking his Sensei to teach him karate. Can’t do that, if you quit.

I recently read a post online by Steve Rowe. For those who may not be familiar, Steve Rowe is a martial artists and author and has posted a number for very insightful things about the martial arts. One of the best takes on black belt that I’ve read in while was from him. Here’s a taste…

“Taking responsibility for themselves.
Their own training.
Their own standards.
Their own progress.
Never blaming others for a setback.
Being stroking enough to help others.
THAT’s a black belt.”

I wish I could find the post again but I’m sure if you Google Steve Rowe, you’ll no doubt find it. But the post goes on to talk about how becoming a black belt is an investment in oneself and how passing black belt is like finding the ladder that you now need to climb. Not only do I truly love this perspective but I agree with it, as well. Over the past 22 years, I’ve continued to push myself, to learn new things, to teach others and to continue my training.

If I were back home, I have every confidence that I would have climbed the dan ranks without question by now. But deep down, I understand that it doesn’t matter. It’s just a belt. And the certificate is just a piece of paper. It’s what you do with those that knowledge once you have it that will make you an effective martial artist. Food for thought…☯️