Daily Yamabushi

Just go.

Sometimes going with what you’ve got is the only choice. You just have to trust that what you’ve got is enough. Although it may not be the best, if it’s the best you’ve got, that’s good enough. Go with it. Just go.

Possible.

Impossible. Unless you put your mind to it. That’s the key. That’s how you get the impossible done. Doing, not trying. Impossible is just a word until it gets done. Then your impossible becomes whatever you put your mind to. Impossible.

Do something extraordinary

If you’re going to do something, it’s worth doing it well. And if you’re going to do something, it’s worth making it extraordinary. Don’t just do something, do something extraordinary.

Significant or otherwise

It’s the small steps that get you started. It’s the small steps that get you where you need to be. Too often we regard the small steps as too small to be significant. But every significant step starts small. Prioritise your permission to take the small steps, significant or otherwise.

You may be waiting a while.

Just make sure you turn up, and put your best foot forward day after day after day. That’s how you get inspiration.

Where to start? The perennial question.

With so many avenues to pursue, it’s hard to know where to go.

Ask yourself:

Which action would have the greatest impact on all other actions? Which domino, if pushed, would, or could, start a continuous cascade?

The lead domino is where you should start. That all important initial burst of motivation need not be big, but it does need to be.

And if you really don’t know where to start, then it probably doesn’t matter where you start, as long as you do!

Any which way you can

Sometimes going through the motions is about as good as you can get. And that’s good enough.

There are times we really don’t feel like doing anything, when we just aren’t feeling it. This is completely natural. It’s all but impossible to ‘feel it’ all of the time. The power move here is to recognise you are in that situation and do things anyway. Do it any which way you can. Or in other words, go through the motions. Do that, and you’re well on your way to ‘feeling it’.

What’s realistic for you?

Work it out for yourself, and stick to it. Do it as long as possible, you’ll be surprised at how far you get. And all you have to do is stick to it.

How will you change the world?

By nature, things change in an unpredictable manner. Whether the change is good or bad depends entirely on perspective. Whether you can accept it or not doesn’t depend on anything. Accept the unpredictability, and you’re well on your way to a life well lived. With this acceptance you can turn your perspective from how the world will change to how you will change your world.

Start by doing

Start by doing. Ride the initial spurt of motivation to its logical conclusion. Reiterate. Keep going. Actions first. Thought later.

And you just keep showing up

That’s it. That’s the trick. You just have to keep showing up time and time again. They’re coming, and they may well catch up to you, but if you keep showing up, they’ll never get you. Just keep showing up. You’re on the right track.

Room for improvement

The realization that you have to be better can hit like a ton of bricks at times. Yet having higher standards to look up to is always a good thing. It keeps you motivated. It keeps you looking in the right direction. It keeps you striving for more. When you just have to be better, well, that’s all there is to it.

And you get to where you get to

You go where you go, and you get to where you get to. There isn’t much point worrying otherwise. It’s out of your control after all. Just jump on the ride and enjoy it, wherever it takes you.

Doing not trying

It’s not that you can’t. It’s that you don’t.

How many things can you say that about? How many things are you tricking yourself into believing you can’t do it, when actually you can but you don’t? It’s all a matter of action.

And you don’t need to make an excuse for it.

What we are experiencing right now is a phenomena called life. Life happens to everyone, and life is lived by everyone. Some people you could say have their fair share of life. Others not so much. The amount is irrelevant. What matters is that we live our lives as we see fit, without intruding on others’. It’s called life. And there’s no need to make an excuse for it.

Action that leads to the why is

Why is not important. Or at least, explaining why is not important. The why becomes apparent when it needs to. What is important is the action taken to get to that why. Do, and the why reveals itself.

Where should your focus be?

First focus on the now. Later, focus on the then now. Get through what you’re going through first before you begin to focus on anything else. Now first. Then later.

There’s less pressure when you practice it

If you suck at something, there’s less pressure when you practice it. Any practice you do, you’re allowed to suck at. You’re allowed to blame anything that doesn’t go well on the fact that you suck at it. At the same time, if you suck at something, there’s no excuse not to practice it until you can no longer say you do suck at it.

Use Time to your advantage

Give yourself a certain timeframe to test things out. If it doesn’t work, either reiterate, or put it in the ‘this doesn’t work’ folder. Then, let it go and move on. With a restricted timeframe you’ve either built up something worthwhile, or found out something doesn’t work quicker than you would otherwise.

Which is it

Couldn’t or can’t. Which is it?

Big difference.

The right lane

You can get in the correct lane at the earliest opportunity, but things can and do happen that throw you off. Build the flexibility to move if necessary, just make sure you’re headed in the right direction.

So nothing is

If everything is a priority, nothing is. Sure, some things really are a priority, but beyond that, your priorities may well be getting in the way of your priorities. Prioritize the things that have cascading effects on other things. Just make sure they become your true priority!

The Way it Should Be

Today I went to reverse my car, but it had been raining quite bad, and the reversing camera was all blurry and completely unusable. Thankfully I could fall back on my years of experience backing a car without a reversing camera, but I started to wonder what other technologies we are taking for granted.

Every once in a while it helps to give yourself a handicap such as this. Not just as a way to maintain your skills, but also as a way to help you appreciate what you have more. Through this appreciation, as the thinking goes, we don’t take things for granted as much as usual, and we also treat the things we have with more respect. The way it should be.

What do you most want them to know?

What do you try to teach your children? What do you most want them to know? If not your children, children in general.

I like to ask this to people I respect. You can see exactly how they either live their values, or try to live them. You can see what they think is worth trying to instill in others. You can see how they try to go about doing that too.

My answer to this question? Well, I try to answer this question every day with this blog.

Do the extraordinary

It’s not as much of a surprise when eccentrics do the extraordinary.

Be an eccentric. Be someone different. That way, anything goes.

Therein lies the difference

Not what is it supposed to do, what does it actually do? And what you can make it do?

This is the first things people interested in technology ask, but it shouldn’t be limited to technology.

By not asking what’s possible, you don’t know what is possible. By not testing the possibility, likewise you’ll never know.

The Way of The Yamabushi

Shugendo is not something you read about, and nor is it something you teach or get taught. Shugendo is only understood through practice. Anything else is superfluous information that only gets in the way. To truly gain an understanding of Shugendo, or at least an elementary understanding, well you’re just going to have to get out there and practice any which way you can.

The one way to find out

If you think you can handle something, you try it. If you aren’t sure, try it anyway. You might surprise yourself. There’s only one way to find out.

Same mountain. Completely different experience.

One thing being a yamabushi has helped me realise, or has maybe simply brought to my attention is that there are two mountains. There is the mountain you climb as a normal person, and there is the mountain you climb as a yamabushi. Even if it’s the same mountain, it’s not.

I’m not saying this to be pretentious, because I climb mountains doesn’t make me more important or special than anyone else, but it does help me realise that a shift in perspective, or mindset, can completely change an experience of a place.

If you enter the mountains as a normal person, as a tourist let’s say, your views are completely different to if you enter the mountains to worship them. What other parts of our daily lives, or the places we visit, could change entirely depending on how we approach them?

Weeds out the unwilling

Just enough inconvenience is helpful. It means you have to want it more, or you have to go home. If it’s too easy, everyone and their cat will do it. Take it a little bit away, and the people that do go there value it so much more. If that’s what it takes to meet like-minded individuals, just enough inconvenience isn’t an inconvenience at all.