Holiday

The Cultured Warrior Newsletter #064 | I am under no obligation to do what I can, only what I love.

"No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
~ Nietzsche

As you might expect, I'm the type of person that would implore you to "labor" on Labor Day.  However, I've also presented many clients with the question:

"How much would you pay yourself to spend more time with your family?"

I did "take the day off" from the office, and still labored (grappling) and spent time with my (grappling) family.  An equally provoking question is,

"If you didn't have to work (for money), how would you spend your time?"

Many people wait until the last third of their life (far too late) to answer that question.  This isn't an argument for socialism.  It's a provocation to ask yourself,

• Why are you doing that thing and not something else?

• What is stopping you from getting / having / being everything you ever wanted?

• How are you dealing with that?

The above image was taken in 2017 not long after I had moved in to a friend's house after totaling the car I'd been living in for the past year or so.  That's a story for another time...

The picture I was actually looking for for this newsletter was my boots up on a porch rail and a beer in my hand, watching a suburban sunset with the caption:

"You're getting older, we're getting colder
You're moving out
You'll trade your six string for a family
And a desk
And I don't blame you for giving up"
~ The Forecast, Seating Subject to Availability

Fast forwarding 3 years to 2020, I bought my first house.  In a similar time frame, in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, I went from a two-stripe blue belt who hadn't trained in 6 years (2019) to the later end of my brown belt here in 2022.

There's a point to this, and it isn't to brag or fish for compliments.

First, you can radically change your life in a relatively short period of time; 3-5 years is sufficient.  We often forget the dramatic life changes that occur between the ages of, say:

• 0 - 1 year,

• 3 - 5 years,

• 13 - 17 years,

• 18 - 25 years,

• and so on.

True, biology disproportionately skews the psycho-social impact of our development towards our earlier years.  However, this brings me to my second point.  Why?  Why bother?  The answer is simple.  

• You owe it to your damn self.

... and precisely because you don't "have to" and the world tells you "that would be okay."  But, what makes special things special (favors, gifts, forgiveness, love, etc.) is that "they don't have to" either.  In fact, it may be a more logical conclusion that they shouldn't happen.  Yet, magnificently, they do anyway.

"How" will require, in perpetuity, that you actively strive towards be-ing better; insisting on defying the passive call to be as you are.  It will require holidays (2).  "Holy" days to make yourself (more) whole.

Those monumental, milestone changes in your life don't happen just because you put them on your vision board or "manifested"* text on social media.  They happen one day, every day, at a time.

So, decide.  Then do.

The prescription was: pick 4 exercises and accomplish the noted reps (150 each) in 50 min or so. As you can see, I paid for my lack of understanding. (PS: the shots were not a "walk" meaning you follow through and get up after each one).

*True manifesting requires embracing and anticipating the struggle, not merely wishful thinking and fantasizing about the proverbial podium celebration.