修験道、剣道、柔道、茶道、書道。

Shugendo, the path to mastery through ascetic training, Kendo, the way of the sword, Judo, the way of passivity, Sado, the way of tea, Shodo, the way of the brush. The ancient Japanese were wise in that they realised this type of pursuit is a path that you take, with goals along the way, but with no succinct goal in mind.

Once you understand this, you understand that your aim in doing things shouldn’t be to reach a certain goal, but to do things for the sake of doing them. Practice for the sake of practice. It’s that simple. Well, there is a slight caveat. It’s not about just doing it for fun, it’s about doing it with the intent to be better than yesterday.

What that means depends very much on the practitioner, which is the beauty of it. This means you don’t compare yourself with others, one of the biggest pitfalls there are.