There are times when I think about how differently I should have done things in the past, time freezes for a moment, because it reminds me that once in my life I thought and did things differently from who I am now. I do not regret a lot of things, I take them as lessons, as well as experiences that had not occurred it wouldn’t have changed me a lot. A lot of things can be said about these kind of stuff, but I want to focus on some of the more positive events and practices I have done and experienced as I’ve matured. Looking back and now writing about it, it seems like I’m reading a good book. I am the author and it’s easy to write about this one, because it provided me a lot of insight on what lessons and practices I have learned and undoubtedly a positive proof of how far I’ve come and how transformative are its contributions to my life.
I have a lot of these but here are my favorite ones:
Reading, gaining knowledge is not the only reason to be reading. Reading for pleasure or escape can be a wonderful use of time. It will not only open worlds you have never been before but also open your mind to how much amazing things our thoughts and imagination can produce. Knowledge can be compounded through books, the more you read the further you go, of course you have to take in account how much information you retain, it does not matter how much or many books you read but how much you get out of it.
When I was younger most of my reading came from reactively reading from Facebook or websites I visit, now that I realize the importance of reading, I unconsciously created a system that gets me to read and it totally works for me. Proactively most of my reading come from authors that I follow, as a part of the email list, every day before work I read one article of choice from each author, not only to gain knowledge but also to keep my streak of reading daily. Other sources of my reading comes from EBooks, I read at least 5 pages on days that I don’t work, I read about 3 different books at the same time, because I easily get bored, I try to read 5 pages of each book and call it a day but sometimes I go through multiple pages with just the one book. It works for me, but it might not work for you. This is a system that I subconsciously do now. It might not sound efficient but it keeps me entertained. Regardless of what happen on that day I still get to read.
The reason I read is simple, I believe in the cliché’: Knowledge is power, but I also believe in the idea according to Mark Manson that the lack of knowledge is weakness. I strive to be better every day and the idlest way to do it is probably reading a book.
I began living the active lifestyle when I turned 16, I am very glad that I made this decision and to this day it never left me. I believe that a life of physical exertion is something our makers and evolution have perfected. If we can, we should make total use of it.
Being physically active, I stated above that I strive to be better every day, and that the idlest way is to read a book, at the same time I try to be active every day. We all have 24 hours in our day, most people spend it doing nothing, what if that time was spent making yourself better, sure, you can add reading time but that only takes up 1-3 hour at most, the next 20 hours is up to you. What if you woke up an hour before you needed to each day and put in a good workout, or stayed up half an hour later to finish a walk or a run, by way of compounding effects how much better would you be at the end of the week? Not only will you be healthy in mind and soul but also in body and spirit. Looking back at it I firmly believe that finding the gym was the start of all the great things and opportunities that happened in my life.
Learning martial arts, I was about 17 years old when I first encountered Mixed martial arts, I believe that without this encounter, my life would have been totally different. During this year I was in a band and dreamed of being a professional musician, but my destiny had other plans, I guess. I was exposed to different vices like smoking and drinking and was hanging out with the wrong people, I started skipping school and was drinking almost every day. My grades started to plummet, my musicality faded. One day I went to the gym and saw people grappling, I watched while in between sets of my workout, the coach asked if I wanted to give it a try, and so I did. I absolutely fell in love with it, this goes on for a year until I get totally crushed and injured. Although I stopped for about 10 years I am slowly getting back to it now I am much more dedicated in achieving more success in terms of my martial arts, Jiu-Jitsu in particular. I include this here because of the benefits I experienced learning martial arts, the idea of diminishing ones’ ego is very important when it comes to martial arts, without ego you are more welcoming of new ideas and much more open to learn things that you do not know, strength is not the paramount component in Jiu-Jitsu although a factor, it is not the end all be all, putting aside everything you think you have and handing yourself to your coaches is integral to your growth as a martial artist. Looking back at it, if my coaches and instructors did not invest time and effort towards making me a better athlete who knows what would have happened to me? I might have gone down and continued to hang out with the wrong people or I might not have graduated in school or worse addicted to wrong substances, but because they took me in and gave me responsibilities at a young age I became a better lad.
Being in fist fights, this might sound somewhat wrong but hear me out, all things has two sides on them, and in this case events turned out to be lessons learned and what came out of it are positive outcomes. Confronting what’s considered by yourself a scary thought is one thing but confrontation in a physical manner as a kid can be very stressful and yet was considered a rite of passage when I was growing up. I was fortunate to have grown in a household of what I considered in my eyes great gritty men, my grandfather and uncles were those gritty men, my father was more on the intellectual side of things. My uncles ingrained in me the importance of being good at being a man, to know how to fight and tough it out when things get hard. I have been in a lot of fist fights when I was a kid, I won a lot and probably lost more, and now that I am older I remember the best lesson I indirectly learned from one event which started it all.
I was just coming home from my first ever beat down at the age of 10, an older kid roughed me up pretty good. My uncles were a bunch of delinquents, they asked who messed me up and they took care of it, the kid won’t even look at me the next day. Thinking about it now, my uncles let this one slide because it was their first time seeing me get beaten up, months later I had gotten another beat down, same exact thing, I was beaten up by someone older than me. My uncles then went to my school, in my head I thought my uncles were going to do the job for me again, but this time they did not. They asked me to fight the kid in front of them, my uncles watched me as I walk towards the kid, I was scared and kept looking back at them thinking it was just a joke because I didn’t want to get beaten up in front of my uncles. The kid and I stood in front of each other and started slugging it out, although I was hitting him, it didn’t matter, he only needed one punch to land on me and that was the end of it, we both stopped, he thought he won, I thought he won too because that one shot he gave me amounted to every hit he took, we both walked away. My uncles thought I lost the fight as well. They treated me for snacks after that and gave me my first bottle of beer, my uncles then told me that they were proud of me, not because I fought and landed more than the other kid, but because I stepped up to the challenge, and even though we thought I lost, they still love me and will always have my back no matter what. I believe that this is where my confidence came from that no matter what I do, whether I win or I lose, I know that the people who loves me will always have my back, I am confident in myself not because I can beat most kids in my town but because even when I lose the people that matter to me will still love and believe in me. all of my grit, confidence and courage came from that kind of masculine support.
Courage and strength does not come only in physicality but also how you face problems and adversity. Being good at being a man is different from being a good man. By fist fighting as a kid I learned how to be tough and badass at the same time, I do however not encourage starting fights, but everybody should experience to be in a fist fight.
XERGIUS 