One in Five

According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, mental illness affects all Canadians at some point in their lives either directly or through a family member, friend, or colleague. Twenty percent of Canadians will personally experience mental illness in their lifetime. Twenty percent. One in five.

You would think that with the statistics being what they are there wouldn't be such a stigma associated with mental illness. Yet that stigma continues to make it a difficult subject to address. It is easy to empathize with someone enduring a physical illness that has obvious symptoms and consequences. The same consideration rarely gets extended to mental illness. Those afflicted tend to suffer in silence.

An adequately funded mental health support system continues to elude us so I doubt we will see a shift in public perception of mental illness anytime soon. Those suffering will, in the most part, continue to suffer in silence.

My heart goes out to the families of mental health sufferers. They understand that the perception of reality for a person suffering from a mental illness can be vastly different than what the majority of us perceive and that difference induces many reactions that may be inappropriate for the circumstance at hand. The patience and love that families show as they face the frustration of the situation is a testament to the range of human endurance and the very definition of compassion.

“Most people, if you live in a big city, you see some form of schizophrenia every day, and it's always in the form of someone homeless. 'Look at that guy - he's crazy. He looks dangerous.' Well, he's on the streets because of mental illness. He probably had a job and a home.” - Eric McCormack (b. 1963)

Frantic Learning

There is a lot of freedom that comes with living simply. As I continually strip away excess in my life, I find a heightened sense of clarity in my perspective. When I am not busy chasing more, I find I have everything I need. As a father and a teacher I strive to give that sense of clarify of perspective to my children and my students, but I can't always prevent those I care about from repeating the mistakes of my past.

Many of my advanced students find themselves caught in a cycle of frantic learning. Like all of us their appetite for new knowledge is insatiable. The problem is with their lack of clarity in perspective. The value of knowledge/skill is found in how it serves you. Knowledge is a tool used to achieve goals, it is not a goal itself. If knowledge is acquired but never applied, the student slips into this fanatic cycle where they are so busy learning that they master nothing. Activity is not necessarily an indication progress.

Knowledge changes everything. New information when applied to old information, changes the old information and makes it new information. I liken kung fu training to a pyramid. Your core techniques are the foundation of the pyramid and the strength of that foundation determines the maximum possible height of the pyramid. Students who do not have a firm grasp of their core techniques will never progress to the higher levels of the art. Rather than doing what it takes to build a stronger base so that more advanced knowledge can be piled on top, many just begin building a new pyramid. It can be a lot more fun to start from scratch than to continually renovate what you have already built. This is why very few people master anything and why there are hardly any real martial artists anymore.

As a master level instructor I am continually rebuilding the base of my pyramid. Everyday my kung fu evolves with new knowledge that is redefining and refining my old knowledge, especially my core techniques. My understanding this morning is deeper than it was on Friday night and come Monday night, I will be a different instructor with more clarity behind my perspective.

In our consumer based society, we tend to mistakenly pursue happiness by acquiring things. When we simplify our lives and reduce the excess, our real values become apparent. No one on their death bed ever wished they would have spent more time at work earning more money. Acquiring knowledge is no different. If you spend all your time chasing knowledge and forget why you were chasing the knowledge, you are going to end up with a lot of regrets.

"Without knowledge action is useless and knowledge without action is futile." - Abu Bakr (573 - 634)

Mistakes, I've Made a Few

I had a good, strong meeting with my I Ho Chuan team yesterday. We're only two months into the Year of the Snake and yet the progress I am seeing in this year's team is profound. We still have a long way to go on the physical aspects of mastery but the positive change character-wise is already apparent. My team's progress is a testament to the efficacy of the UBBT process.

As our conversation went around the room, everyone shared their personal trials. The path to mastery is not an easy one. It takes constant vigilance to stay on the path. We all make mistakes but it is what we do with those mistakes that ultimately determine our final outcome. There are truths of life that must be accepted in order to succeed.

The first truth is mistakes will be made. Mistakes are a fact of life and we all make them. Accepting this truth allows us to stop punishing ourselves and move on.

The second truth is that there are reasons for the mistakes we make. A mistake may be stupid but there is almost always a logical reason behind the mistakes we make. Mistakes tend to be symptoms of other underlying issues and attitudes.

The third truth is that once we understand our mistakes, we can correct them, learn from them, and grow from them. Success is built upon the wisdom generated by our mistakes.

"An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field." - Niels Bohr (1885 - 1962)

Entitlement

Perhaps it is a sign of the stage I am in life or maybe it has something to do with the specific people I have been noticing lately. There seems to be a disproportionately large number of people who have a misguided sense of entitlement.

It really struck me hard when one of the girls from the Atsikana Pa Ulendo school in Malawi had the opportunity to spend a few weeks studying in Canada. She was eating in the school cafeteria when people noticed her suddenly break down crying. She couldn’t understand the amount of food her fellow students were throwing in the trash bin when so many in her home country went to bed hungry. The food we waste here is obscene but despite the state of our own food supply heading toward a crisis, most of us continue to take having access to everything we want to eat for granted.

I don’t know if it is like this all over Canada but here in Alberta where employment has been easy to come by for as long as I can remember, I see many people who don’t think twice about their professional reputation. They go from job to job with little or no concern of the consequence of the trail they are leaving in their wake.

My parents and mentors have taught me things that have served me well throughout my life. The single most important thing they have taught me is that every action you choose to take has consequences and every action you choose not to take also has consequences. Nothing is for free. I think if everyone’s attitude was influenced by an awareness of this fact, their sense of entitlement would be eliminated.

“Don’t feel entitled to anything you don’t sweat and struggle for.” - Marian Wright Edelman (b. 1939)