Today is important, but now is more important than today.
Tomorrow matters, but today matters more.
Yearly planning is vital, but this quarter must yield returns.
Our strategic vision must extend into decades, even into centuries and beyond. The tactics which serve our vision belong in this moment.
If among your friends you have a recovering alcoholic or addict, consider yourself fortunate. They have a resolve and a discipline you may never know. They will tell you "One day at a time."
If in your pool of human resources you have a financial planner, you have a degree of privilege. Even so, their advice will echo that of humble farmers: "Plan for the future."
Now and the future are not at odds. If you're hungry now, plant seeds today. Invest in today by harvesting yesterday. Let tomorrow be the path of growth today.
A beginner in the game of pool will take the easiest shot and hope it works out. The pool shark uses the first shot to create the next, and the next, and the next.
The Go novice will seize every opportunity to capture stones. The more advanced player knows the value of giving a measure of freedom to the opponent.
In combat, you cannot manage ten attackers at once. Manage one. In combat, you cannot manage one adversary, or you will be killed by nine. Manage one anyway.
Ten attackers are one. Manage one.
"Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to train."
If this is true, why do we go to the dojo?
To train, but not to train: To learn how to train.
Training in the dojo is incomplete. Training outside the dojo is incomplete. Learning how to train is what brings completion, and is itself never completed. The dojo is not just a place of training -- it is the place of the way of training. There is a crucial difference.
The arc of humanity, like the span of your lifetime, is made of infinite moments. Live in the infinite moment.
Which one?
Choose one.
Manage just one.
2015.01.09
Ross Robertson
Still Point Aikido Systems
Honmatsu Aikido
Austin TX, USA
www.stillpointaikido.com
www.rariora.org/writing/articles
@phospheros
