Look death in the eye:

You ever turn away from something coming at you like it just might stop if you don’t look at it? Chances are you got smashed anyway. This happens all the time literally and figuratively. My attitude about it is if death is gonna come knocking we might as well look it in the eye and see our fate.

In sparring, 1 human being is trying to hit another. This creates a bit of tension. Some seem fearless and others wear their fear on their sleeve. There is no right or wrong here. It is what it is. The key becomes what do we do about this? If we have no fear of getting hit, Great! You are one of the lucky few.

After countless rounds in the ring sparring and fighting I can honestly say that I get a little nervous before every round. It usually settles between a balance of not wanting to look stupid and the other is that I know what can go wrong and how much it could hurt. It is how we all deal with our nerves or fear that will define our success or failure.

I don’t know to many people that like pain or being afraid. Sparring is an exercise in both. It is inevitable that you will feel pain from being hit then you will have to deal with fear of it happening again. In time you will either accept this or you will stop sparring all together.

Life is no different then sparring. You have to accept that in trying to live we will be faced with pain and fear. If we accept this and deal with it we will keep progressing. If we let fear of pain stop us we will be living a limited existence. This is unacceptable to some but the norm for most.

Why do we love action movies? Its because somebody else is being the hero for us. Americans love the guy who takes a beating then comes out on top in the end. Most like this story because it is how they feel but can only imagine living. Our pop culture lives are inundated with images of those that do so we don’t have to. We can let pop culture live for us or we can define our lives thru our own personal culture.

We have created a society of professional spectators. The majority of people will watch or listen before doing. That is why we love our TV’s, Movie Theatres, radios, computers, cell phones, etc…… They are all vehicles of distraction from doing. That is why we pay the money we do to entertainers and their industries. It is easier to give up money then it is effort.

The true purpose driven life is the one that looks death in the eye and says I don’t care. We all know we are going to die but not all of us appreciate the time we have before death comes. We can live in fear as spectators that allow others to take the hits for us or we can get up and get out into the world and live our own lives with our own experiences.

Nothing has been more real for me then getting punched in the face. It is an immediate wake up call. It lets you know that you made a mistake like not to many other mistakes in life. It has made me appreciate everything I have and motivated me to go after the things I want. I also know I won’t be able to spar and compete at a high level forever. I have been forced to accept time and my personal limitations from wear and tear. This has translated into an appreciation for most things in my life. I know that many good things in life are fleeting and I must enjoy them while they are still here.

Not everyone needs a punch n the face to wake them up to reality. We all have our sparring. Mine is in a ring. Yours may be the boardroom. No matter what we all take our shots. We can freak out about them or we can take them and learn to appreciate the fleeting nature of life.