Skip to main content

Being Present

CHOP WOOD CARRY WATER" Greeting Card for Sale by starkle | Redbubble

     There is a book called Chop Wood Carry Water, and its main focus is learning to enjoy the process.  This book is about a man who decides to drop everything and follow his dream to becoming a Samurai Archer; he arrives at the school and is ready to start shooting arrows, but the first thing they have him do is chop wood and carry water; the village does not have heat or running water, so it relies on people to chop wood and carry water.  The main character is frustrated that he isn't shooting on the range, so one day he blows up on his sensei.  His sensei tells him that he must work and earn his way to being an archer, and first it starts by supporting his community by chopping wood and carrying water.  Through many lessons and parables as the book goes on, the sensei teaches the main character that in order to perform to the best of your ability, in whatever he is doing, he must learn to be present in that moment.

    I started reading this book because a clinician at Iron Sharpens Iron (a wrestling camp I went to almost every summer) told us campers about it.  He helped us craft goals that didn't align with the uncontrollables (placements at tournaments), but the controllables (how hard we work).  One of my favorite quotes from this book is, "the ultimate illusion of the human experience is control.  The person you want beside you in battle is the guy who has surrendered the outcome, and surrendered to the fact that he might die.  When you surrender the outcome, you are freed up to be at your best, to be in the moment, and tot trust your training."  I think this quote resonates so strongly with me for many reasons; it stresses the fact that the outcome is uncontrollable, and the only thing that can be controlled is what one does in a moment.

    In previous years with wrestling, I have always created goals for myself that involved placing at a certain position in a tournament (oftentimes winning nationals or placing top 3).  I would get so upset when I failed at reaching those goals that I completely overlooked all of the growth I had achieved while attempting that goal.  My junior year, I was so focused on my state finals match, not focused on the task at hand, that I lost my semi-finals match in overtime, even though I had won state the previous years, and I was supposed to walk through the bracket this year.  Being present is so important; in life, the only thing you have to do is die; everything else you choose to do, so it's time we all start to choose with a purpose and really enjoy what those choices are.

Comments

  1. Andy Pham4:02 PM

    I liked how you applied your own experience with the main lesson of the book. I have always told myself that the past is in the past, the future is yet to come and the present is right now. It really made me reflect and think about that lesson my dad told me. I definitely consider purchasing the book, it has piqued my interest.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Sky Can Pull Herself Together

    I wonder how often rain falls, and out of the times it does rain, I wonder what the most common kind of rain is.  Is the most common form of rain a drizzle, mist, pouring rain, thunderstorm, or something else?  I think one of my most favorite things about rain is the silence.  After almost every storm, there is a silence that lingers. How quickly the sky can pull herself together, after the storm, is beautiful.     I admire the sky.  She can go through so much destruction, yet pull herself together all the same. Sometimes she doesn't fully get it together until the sunset or rise, but she still does.  She is so capable.  Maybe I am, too.     No matter what you are going through, you are like the sky.  There are many things that could  happen, and a lot of them can be uncalled for, unfair, and something no one should ever have to go thorough, but you can pull yourself together.  Whatever destru...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is Putin Flying Too Close to the Sun?

      There was not a specific scene that got to me; however, there is something I found alarming.  The fact that athletes were doping, in general, doesn't surprise me (I feel like athletes get caught for that all the time), but the fact that 100% of the Russian athletes in the 2014 Olympics (in Russia) were doping, and the fact that this doping of the athletes was led by Putin (well, it came down the chain of command, but the people leading the program were essentially hired by Putin), did really get to me.  It just left me dumbfounded, and I'm not sure why; I don't think there's really anyway else for me to describe how or why this blew my mind, but it did.     What most surprised me was the extreme lengths the Russians went to in order to get their athletes to be able to dope during the 2014 Olympics in Sochi and pass the drug tests.  Like, the containers being used to hold the urine were specifically made so that in order to ope...
2 comments
Read more

The Documentary Summary from Down Below

     I thought I knew what I was doing when I set out to write my Doc. Summary, which I did because I knew how to set up my paper.     I started with a thesis statement, and then outlined the rest of my paper.     I have been writing objective summaries since elementary school, so I wasn’t too worried about that part.     I was a little iffy on the analysis part because I didn’t know what my professor was looking for, and it took a while for me to get the hang of it.      At first, I set up my essay almost as two separate papers; the first half was the summary, and the second half was the analysis.     Both had their own introduction and conclusion paragraphs and their own thesis statements.     I took this paper to class with me, and my professor wasn’t too keen on the set up, so I kind of had a mental breakdown because my brain couldn’t figure out how to organize a paper like she wanted. I sat on her comme...
3 comments
Read more