Ever reminisced to being back in grade school and trying to figure out what crowd you wanted to be a part of? The geeks, nerds, preppy, cool cats, jocks, b-boys, goths, punkers, etc. I remember that I tried them all and still didn’t really feel like I fit in but noticed something during these growing times of self discovery. Every group I was a part of, there was this synchronizing of behaviors that took place. Since the obvious thing was to be absorbed into the group’s main interest, everyone thought the same or expected you to agree with the common ideas. Eventually, I adapted myself to the idea and eventually became just that. As the title of this blog post suggests, if you hang around broke people all the time, conceptually, you’ll eventually become broke as well. No, I’m not rich…yet! Working on it. Maybe I’m late when saying this,
but today there is this new category of personality that exists. Emo to be exact. You know, the over emotional, melodramatic, “the world exists to make me feel sad” type of personality. I noticed that the younger generation has adapted it to be the next cool thing. How weird is that?! Even some individuals in the generation just before them suggests that it is normal. I don’t buy that at all. During the course of my growing up in the martial arts community, I’ve learned some very honorable traits that has without a doubt made me stronger, wiser and an overall better person. These attributes gained will vary from person to person, but this is how it affected me. Muay Thai gave me discipline, respect and confidence. Filipino Martial Arts gave me pride, honor and family heritage. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gave me patience, analytical thinking and strength. Judo gave me another way to start over and test myself on the things that I’ve already learned. Jeet Kune Do gave me the ability to mix all of these together and create a recipes on how to improve on a constant basis. All of the people I’ve been around with had all of these traits and it’s addictive to be around. Whenever I’m around like minded folks, it just tells me that the choice I made to stick with martial arts was one of the best choices I’ve ever made. Those people made me into the person I am today and continue to become. Just like the philosophy that Bruce Lee introduced to the world, Jeet Kune Do.
Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is uniquely your own.
Each person that I’ve met had specific things that I thought were useful which I integrated into my life; even tried on their personality to feel it out just as if I was a kid again. In those small moments, I discovered that it feels good to be in that mindset and that I only enjoy being around those people.
So what’s next? The new frontier? To boldly go where no man has gone before? (Sorry, bad Star Trek segway) As a school owner and instructor, how can I use my experience to enhance other lives to get to the same place of feeling free. Freedom in this aspect has so many layers that it is pretty difficult to explain. What I can say is that this freedom helps me see the future clearer than it was before. To see the things that need to be done and the bumps in the road that I know I will hit but need to push through. It doesn’t go away and avoiding it just means that the goal will just lie there. Only waiting to be conquered. Time is too precious to be wasted. So be compelled to put another notch on your belt of success. Get out there and hang out with the people you think will bring you closer to your goals and learn from them, absorb their best traits and have it work for you. Once you’re out of the rat race, you’ll find a whole new world waiting just for you.
