Relationships Come First!

As I continue to plug away at my UBBT tasks, it has become suddenly and painfully apparent to me that keeping everything in BALANCE is an important part of this test. We cannot afford to be martial artists in a vacuum! Even though I'd love to live a life in which I trained and studied martial arts 16 hours a day (I know many of my UBBT teammates understand this level of passion), I've come to the realization that we need to be come Artists of Life — in the REAL WORLD.

Now, I know that this point seems obvious to anyone reading this post, but it's true — and I don't understand why or how it wasn't glaringly obvious to ME:

Building, maintaining, nurturing, and strengthening our RELATIONSHIPS is far more important than building our muscles, our skills, our knowledge, or our schools.

For what happens if I "pass" this Ultimate Black Belt Test and satisfy all the requirements, but have no one to celebrate with? What happens if I fail this test (perish the thought — I WILL NOT FAIL!), and have no one to cry with? Victory or defeat, what a hollow feeling that would be!

From this point forward, relationships come first. If I can focus on this point and honor it every day of my test, every other requirement will be a piece of cake.

(Special thanks to my wife, Joy, for pointing these things out to me. You are a great teacher. Thank you and I love you!)