This is a lesson I’ve been learning recently. And it is one that is entirely within our control. Speaking it releases it .. allows it to come out into the open to be examined and let go of with compassion and love.
But of course, that starts with a need to trust. And that can be a huge journey in itself .. reaching a level of certainty or of desperation to surrender, knowing that within is the strength to survive and thrive.
I’ve loved to see my life as a closed book .. and it exists on countless journals that were my companion the past 27 or more years. I want to start opening them up. Perhaps I will release some secrets. I wonder myself what I will discover. I will look for lessons I can pass on from where I now stand.
I also want to create a video of each of the aikido techniques, with my training buddy Monica, to see myself from an outsider’s perspective, and achieve clarity in the process. I think that would help me and also be helpful for others who would like to have an introduction to the art.
I used to love to go and watch the soap box orators in Hyde Park in London and I’ve always been fascinated and in admiration of people who can express themselves with confidence and clarity. I know I just need to keep practicing and I can start to develop that confidence in baby steps. It feels like the beginning of a new journey.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt