People think that acorns grow into oak trees. This is a misunderstanding. It has dangerous implications.
You see a forest of majestic oaks and you think all these magnificent oak trees grew from acorns. Which is true. But for every oak that grew there were a million acorns that didn’t. Thousands of acorns fell from every oak every year for centuries. Almost everyone of the acorns rotted on the ground, or in the ground, or got eaten by squirrels, or dried out. They all had the potential to be oak trees. And almost none of them fulfilled that potential.
We are like that. We may think we are ordinary. We may be at the moment. There is no reason to remain ordinary. People have the potential to be magnificent. But we can fulfill that potential only if we have the right conditions.
Acorns can’t make choices. We can. We can figure out who we want to be, and how we can go about it. It is not up to chance. It is a mistake to lay there on the forest floor, carried by a stream, blown in the wind, buried under leaves, and hope for the best. We can find people we admire. See what they are like, and what they did to get like that. Find out what you need to know. We all can find nourishment in the treasury of spirit, discovery, invention and example that people have amassed. There is no dragon sitting on it. It is ours.
People can become magnificent. Not automatically. Not by hoping or pretending. Not by picking a path at random, or by trying to compete based on dreams alone.
It takes imagination, initiative and diligence. Everyone has that, in potential, and can use it, in fact.
That’s all, oaks.
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Post copyright © 2024 Jeffrey Brooks
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header image Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz via Pexels
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“One of the best books I’ve read in years, inviting and compelling. Jeff Brooks moves effortlessly from martial arts to Buddhism to consciousness studies, self-transformation, and related fields in this wide-ranging and Illuminating study that has much to offer both novice explorers and veteran practitioners. A splendid achievement.”
— Philip Zaleski, Editor, The Best Spiritual Writing series
True Karate Dō is available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover and Kindle Edition