The Fountain of Youth

I love surrounding myself with people that have gotten over the idea that only children should spend their time learning. For me, there is no substitute for learning. Learning is the kind of wealth that will follow you everywhere. I'm not talking about attainment of degrees. Certificates and diplomas only mean something to the people that don't know you. What I'm talking about doesn't have an end. To the contrary, it has a million beginnings. Too many people let their egos get in the way of what it means to truly live getting old in the process. They fear losing their perceived value as a person if they were to submit to the act of learning something new. Then there are those people that get frustrated and quit something that they try to learn. What they don't understand is that we learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself. Therefore, I don't believe that the number of years you have lived determines if you are old. I believe the lack of curiosity of life determines your age. And quite simply, people who feel that they are too old too learn have not yet learned to be young. Learning satisfies something deep inside us that can't be rivaled. Life and learning go hand-in-hand. In continuing to learn, I'm seeking an origin, you could call it a rebirth. Each time I learn something, I feel closer to the essence of life and my youth. I've found that learning very well may be my own personal fountain of youth.
Happiness. Wealth. Friendship. Luck. Affluence. Prosperity. Abundance. These are not things that we acquire. We can't find happiness at a location or a time yet to come. We can't wait for things to get better or for things to stop getting worse. We also can't push for the things to get better. Pushing only drives things the other way. We don't acquire it. We constantly choose it. We have to make the constant choice to tune into it. When we allow ourselves to tune into happiness and wealth, we stop trying so hard and it naturally comes. We have to trust in our innate power. We are much more powerful than we tend to believe.

But really its less of a choice than it is a feeling. We have to learn to empty the mind and feel. When we keep our mind centered and relaxed, we can allow ourselves to naturally move forward. This kind of natural progress is stronger than anything in the world. Choose to be simple. Feel the connection with abundance and things become clear. I've found this deeply personal yet highly universal feeling of oneness with things. I'm not sure that I'd have found this without martial arts. And to think most people count martial arts off as just learning how to fight. ;)

Daring Greatly

It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither defeat nor victory.