Life is a battle. A dance. A martial art.
I do karate. My first and only competition I entered as intermediate. I arrived and saw a black belts gathering: the announcer proclaimed “direct your attention to mat 3, the black belts will be the best show of the day!”
Cool! I thought, I will be with the intermediates directly after the black belts.
I saw the event organizer, Chuck, walking up to black belts asking for names. At the end he looked at the list, studying it with other officials.
“Uh oh”, I said to my fiancée Greta, while sitting in stands.
“What?” She asked.
“I think they put me in the black belt bracket.”
“No they did not!” she re-affirmed me, “You are only a white belt.”
Chuck went to the microphone.
Chuck: “Pierce Papke please sign in at mat 3”.
I walked over, heart racing, in my dirty white belt.
“I’m only an intermediate, I’m not a black belt” I said to event officials.
“You’re the only intermediate who signed up so we moved you up.”
Have you ever fought a black belt? It’s terrifying.
I fought, my heart rate topping 200. I got punched and kicked. I lost, but I stood my ground and even performed a half-finished leg sweep.
It’s what happened after that shocked me:
The dude who beat me went into the next round against another black belt, and knocked him out with a kick to the head in the first 3 seconds.
There’s a quote: “life will beat you to your knees if you let it. It’s not about how hard you get hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”
I almost didn’t go to mat 3. I was almost knocked to the ground in the fight. I felt scared. But I told myself “No matter what you feel, stay up!”
Life is like this. Depression, nihilism, pessimism hit hard. If we let it, life will beat us down. The key is to dance with punches and kicks life throws.
Our goal in life should be to stay up. Make room for the emotions, feel them, but don’t let emotions dictate actions. That’s how you let life knock you out. Stay on your feet, and dance.
