Sunday Story...The Choice

The other day one of my students returned after spending the last 7 months undergoing treatment for cancer. She has done it all…chemo, surgery, and next radiation. Her spirit is amazingly strong. She is now returning to the mat, albeit slowly, but she is back. She could’ve gone any number of directions. Self-pity, denial, anger all come to my mind. And maybe she went through all of those. Then she made a choice of how she was going to deal with this challenge.

Hopefully most of you never have to face a choice of this magnitude. This fact is simple: Life is going to happen. What is important is not what happens but what you do with what happens. You never know what is going to be thrown at you next, this road is not marked very well and there are lots of things that just happen.

In spite of our best laid plans, in spite of our proactive approaches, in spite of our positive mental outlook and visualizations stuff is going to happen that may, on the surface, derail those plans. You are going to get injured…especially if you are going hard. The harder you train, the more you push your body to the limit the more likely it is to start breaking down and then you are going to get hurt. Then you get to decide…you can work around the injury,, keep going and do what you can based on the limitation placed in front of you. Or you can sit on the couch, eat bad food, and get fat. Your choice.

The same problem applies to other situations. When my friend got her diagnosis she decided on a course of treatment and followed it. She did what she could based upon the limitations placed upon her. Then she went to work on a work around to maintain her fitness and health.

Your life has been a series of choices and it is going to continue that way. Every day you are making choices that will affect you in profound ways years and years from now. The food you eat, the beverages you drink, the exercise you do (or don’t do) are all choices. The sad thing is that the information is readily available to you now to make a sound decision. Take smoking for instance…did anyone not get the memo about smoking? Bad for your health, even the package it comes in says so. Yet people choose every day to smoke…the excuses are myriad and lame. The same is true…I don’t want to give up_____, I just want to enjoy myself, I really need to have a soda to keep going. All choice statements.

When I get injured I get the best advice possible, decide on a course of action and get to work. I have never been face with cancer in my life but the course of action would be the same. Get the best information, make a plan, work the plan and then get going.

Who you are is the sum of all your injuries, your challenges, and your decisions of what to do about them Cancer doesn’t get to define you, a blown knee doesn’t get to define you, the loss of a loved one, the loss of a limb, a catastrophic event…these things are not you. They are just the things that happen to you. Who you are is your decisions to live a life of purpose and meaning. Who you are is all the choices you made leading up to this moment. The choices to keep going, to keep fighting, to do whatever it took to get back.

These are not easy choices. If they were easy everyone would make them. It is hard to go to the gym injured. It is hard to walk back on the mat after 7 months and take that first step back to the life you had. It is easy to sit on your butt and do nothing. And guess what? The older we are the harder the choice is to make. You already know what it took and now you are going to climb that mountain again, and again, and again. The older we are the longer and more painful the rehab is going to be. And the comeback is so much more rewarding because you are facing longer odds and in our world everyone is willing to cut you some slack “at your age.”

It isn’t easy. It is worth it. Now go out and make what happens to you mean something really important, really special by showing the world who you are deep inside.
In the words of Winston Churchill…”Never Give up”

Join me in welcoming Wendy Tustin back. I always knew you would be back. Thanks for being my hero.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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