The sun is slowly peeking its eyes over the horizon. The silence is broken by the resolute movement of the sword. The Samurai is completing his morning practice. You can find him here everyday. For the last 10 years. Every morning, the same time, same place, same movements. On a rainy day, on a snowy day, in the summer in the winter, whatever is happening in his life, he is here, ready to practice one more time. It goes beyond an exercise, it is a way of life. Intention, aspiration, humility and discipline…
Whether we train martial arts, sports, playing a musical instrument or anything else, we don’t find it difficult to accept the notion of practice. We practice because we want to learn, grow and be better tomorrow. We know that there is no shortcut and we rejoice with every progress we make. We don’t expect to be perfect right away, we understand this is a long term game. It brings us lightness, humility and playfullness, willingness to experiment and try new things. It builds our character and tests our ability to persevere and recover from setbacks to achieve sustained progress…
Yet for some reason, when doing our work in the world, leading our lives, being family members or while leading people and organisations, we have lost the notion of practice. We feel we have to be absolutely perfect even when we do something for the very first time. We set high expectations to each other and mainly on ourselves. At times, this helps us to ‘push’ ourselves and aspire higher but many times it produces stress, shame, guilt and endless dissatisfaction and non-acceptance of who we are.
How would it be to invite the notion of ‘practice’ into our personal and professional lives? How would it be to aspire and do our best every time yet always know inside that practice by definition never can be perfect and that the more we practice the better we get? How would it be to think where we can play, dance and create new opportunities to practice our art in the world? How would it be to live in humility about what we do and focus on our art first instead of commenting on the art of others?
Where can you create opportunities to practice in your life? What new possibilities does it open for you? What changes in the way of ‘being’ in your life can this bring?
