The Practitioner's Journal | Jiu Jitsu

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You’ll Never Be This Young Again

Newsflash: You are never going to be as young as you are right now. 

Tomorrow you are going to be older. 

The next day, even older…

The next month, year, 10 years… even older. 

As we grow older, we expect ourselves to become wiser. 

But wisdom and age are not synonymous, nor a given.

You do not become wiser with age, you become wiser as you learn to navigate through life and assimilate with new experiences (problems, people, events, places, etc).

Time is a channel for more new experiences, but not a truth. 

It is through change, resolvement, and adaptation that you acquire wisdom.  You will not acquire wisdom by shielding yourself from new experience. 

As we grow older, we start to realize that time is a precious commodity. We often find ourselves looking back on our younger years and wishing we had done more. 

… while we had the physical ability, the mental energy, the stamina, and the TIME to do more and take on new things. 

Now you have kids, a mortgage, a job, ie. more responsibilities, more stress, and less time. 

That said, regardless of what you have on your plate today; right now, at this very moment, you will never be this young again. 

Every delayed decision and every day you push off your dreams and desires is a missed opportunity to invest in your future self - to become wiser. 

As we age, it is a given that our strength will decline and our total time on earth will diminish. 

The truth is, we think we have plenty of time to… 

  • Get it in shape.

  • Travel. 

  • Try out a new sport. 

  • Break the rules. 

  • Get to know your friends better. 

  • Go for that girl or boy. 

  • Get involved in a new club or social group.

  • Start a new craft or hobby. 

  • Take that class, that job, that opportunity to move to a new location. 

  • Get to know your parents. 

But the reality is, we'll never be as young as we are right now. The longer we wait, the harder it becomes to start new habits and push ourselves to new limits.

Jiu jitsu is a great example of an activity that people often wait on. They think they're too old, not fit enough, or don't have enough experience to start. But the truth is, there's never a "perfect" time to start something new. The most important thing is to take the first step and start.

No matter what you want to do, you must do it now. 

Before you make excuses, ask yourself…

Who is the person I want to be when I am older? 

Do I want to be the old man or woman that never left the couch? That never left their job? That never took a risk? That never broke the rules? 

Do I want to be the person that started saying no to new experiences two years after they graduated college?

Or do I want to be the person that risked it all, that fell on their face, that explored new things, that gave it their all - filled with stories, laughter, and wisdom?

One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the thing you’ve always wanted. Do it now. 

- Paulo Coelho

Own the Process,

Tim

Author & Founder