Today I did the last of my exercises at level 1, doing 10/10/50/50/50/ short bridges and 10 sec/ 2min headstands. Now it is two days of rest, and next week on up to level 2. I will do sprints on one of those rest days.
Warning: Deep & Meaningful Philosophical content follows
Well if that didn’t put you off, here’s the story. I received an email from my martial arts instructor that posed the following questions. I’m sure he posed them to everyone and not just me. It is in a similar vein to the write your own eulogy exercise:
Allow me to pose 3 different questions, which may make it easier to acess your thoughts.
Premise; If you had 2 minutes to live and could still speak, to your eldest son,daughter/friend/young person starting out..you get the idea…
1 What three significant thoughts/things you have learned in your entire lifetime do you feel would benefit him/her/them most?
Question 2 …Have you done this?
Question 3.. if not What are you waiting for?
Question 4…. If not any of them, as you may not like your kids or have few friends, have you anything I might benefit from?
I actually didn’t need to think about this for very long, and rather than give a cute reply, I came up with this:
1 Three things:
a. Look after your health; follow a primal diet, stretch and do calisthenics regularly and allow yourself to rest & heal. Breathe.
b. Level up; develop yourself and your skills, learn new skills, approach them in a systematic, progressive manner and practice regularly, have goals.
c. Enjoy life; approach tasks and encounters with relaxed enthusiasm, expect abundance – not everything needs to be a competition, don’t feel obliged to justify yourself to anyone else.
I summarise these as:
a. Live
b. Grow
c. Flourish
2. I am doing this. Now. I had been going along for a long time following parts of this, off and on. It was around June of this year that I started to really put it all together, and I feel that it is working well for me. Mentally, physically and spiritually I feel in the best shape I’ve ever been in, and it can only get better. At different times I have probably been stronger in 1 or two of these areas than I am now, but was always missing at least one of the others. I don’t know what prompted this epiphany, whether as a result of introspection after my birthday, as a result of something I read, studied, practiced, assimilation of ideas from martial arts, introspection after my Dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer or whatever. Life is good and getting better.
3. See 2. I still have a way to go, but I’ll get there.
4. I would like to think that were I to have children that I would never need to say these things to them in my final 2 minutes and that they have learned these things from me throughout my life. I would like to spend that last two minutes saying good bye, so that we may all approach the next step with relaxed enthusiasm.
I wonder what response, if any, this will elicit from him.
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