You are what you eat!?!

Someone said this age old phrase to me today, and it got me thinking, what kind of crap is that? you eat a burger and your going to be a burger? i dont think so. you eat a french fry and you will become skinny? i dont think so either. yes, i take things too literally, but bear with me, i am going somewhere with this...

What if we took that saying literally, but applied it to how we live rather than how we eat? very fitting i thought. in a literal sense, i would construe that as meaning "you are what society makes you". IE: you are fed what the society you live in, ergo the people you associate with gives you to eat, whether that be professionalism and desire to succeed, or crime and violence. And i think to a degree, thats very true.

Then i started to expand on that. Society may make us who we are, but it does not force itself on us, meaning we can choose our own society. The people we surround ourselves with, the people we work with and drink with etc etc. Stuck in your job for now? you can still choose who you sit next to on your lunch break.

So why not surround ourselves with excellence? why not surround ourselves with modest people, nice people, people who are experts in what we wish to excel in?
For me, this does not mean restricting myself to solely associating with these people alone, for restrictive learning is no learning at all. But on the other side of the coin, the people you spend most of your time with, and learn to like to a degree of emulation and respect as a "role model" will be the people that push you to succeed. Be it with encouragement, or simply by being the kind of person you want to be, giving you a desire and sense of possibility to achieve whatever you want.

Desire doesnt just appear, it needs to be planted, and then fed. You didnt wake up one day, without ever seeing anything to do with martial arts and think "i know, i want to become a really good martial artist!" you saw it, which planted the seed of desire, and then you surrounded yourself with martial artists. In a dojo or on a forum, or wherever. In my opinion (and i dont claim to be any sort of expert by the way lol) this rings true with every other aspect of life.

Just some of my thoughts for today i thought i would share with you all. and yes, i do have a lot of time on my hands lol. hope you all enjoy.

Rick.

Totally agree, but what fascinates me is people growing up on rough council estates that are fed crap all day yet still make good of their lives,

Den

Correct on two fronts the fisrt rick is what geoff calls cerebal ingestion wheras what we feed our brain makes us who we are...

Second dennis i think it comes down to certain people can only be force fed so much until they become so sick of it they fight back. In this instance become successfull..

I have to Agree with Pete on this one,

9 times out of 10 someone will try some form of healthy eating but they dont realise its a lifestyle until they see how unfit they become or worse end up with diabetes etc. now we can change what we eat, and some do change their habits based on taking in too much crap they get fed up and decide to do something about it,

What people do not do, ( in my opinion ) is expand on the cerebral food, knowledge, information, from books, and people on a regular basis. we need to feed our mind as well as our body for the complete system to work. Easier said than done maybe, but why feed the body and look and feel good if we do not do the same with our mind?

Craig

its so hard tho when you get in at 6:30, your tired and its so easy just to order a pizza or chinese

Nowt wrong with that mate
as long as its not every day of the week, but you also take time to sort your mindset out as well.

Positive mind = positive results mate.

Craig,

how do we stay positive without putting on rose tinted glasses and unrealistically seeing everything as positive and not accepting reality.

I had an ma instructor like that and he still is in the same position doing the same things he did years ago when I left.

No progress forward but lots of positivity!

Den

Hi Den

I see where you are coming from mate, there is nothing in my post about not accepting reality, of course its where we all live and breathe. However,

Positivity are a state of mind, not just coming from training, or from instructors, we are all capable of seeing the good in everything, be it in hindsight, or at the moment we are going through something tough.

Your instructor may have a positive state of mind to keep going, but does he have the foresight to act on what he really wants, or is he afraid to move forward.

A positive state of mind, be it from books, people or anywhere else you get perked up from is a good state in which to think about ideas you have had and see them with the same positivity you are feeling. something you have always wanted to do but always put off.

I can only speak for myself but I try and maintain a positive outlook on things, it does not always happen as I am human ( despite the rumors ). and am prone to days of feeling shit as is everyone, the key is NOT to keep this feeling and move past it.

Rose tinted glasses are fine for some people, but looking at the world in the perspective of how it is, works better for me, especially knowing I have good people around me, friends, family, and people who support me know matter what is going on or what I wanted to do.

We cannot make people change mate, but we can show them how we do it moving forward and aiming for what we want. and hope they follow suit. but only takes one person to start the ball rolling to show people the way.

not sure this answers your question as I seem to have rambled but just my two cents.

Stay safe
Craig

The Buddha said that to succeed it's good to have 3 things in place.

Buddha - the quest of the 'knowing mind'

Dharma - always searching for the truth

Sangha - a group of like minded people around you

I think that applies to any martial arts dojo or kwoon.

The sangha is helpful but not essential. You need to learn to rely on yourself at some point and learn to function in a hostile environment and remain the same, otherwise it's only talk with your mates.

Nice one steve

Thanks for that mate, very true

Craig

Craig thats fairly my mindset cheers,

steve,

I dont comprehend point 1 and point 2 Im always searching for the truth yet it keeps changing in front of my eyes!

Maybe thats the point?

But it is frustrating,

cheers,

Den.

Hi Den

It is the point and a truth in itself! The Buddha gave 3 characteristics of existence

All things are impermanent, are unsatisfactory and not self.

One thing that doesn't change is the fact that everything is always changing. Therefore trying to hold on to it is unsatisfactory and none of it or conversely all of it is you because you are interdependent with and therefore are all other things.

Cheers Steve,

I enjoy rading philosophy but Buddhism and your last post, certainly makes my head hurt,

I need to sit down and muse on what you said but I basically get t thrust of your point,

Thanks,

Den

I see it as though I'm climing a tree or a mountain.

As we learn more from the world we're in we get a little higher. But as we do that our vantage point and view of the world changes. We see things differently as a result of this knowledge and heightened level.

So then we must adjust and learn from what we now see.

And, one thing that was said to me recently really hit the spot for me.

As we climb higher we must never forget to look down occasionally - just to remind ourselves where we have come from and how far we've climbed - it's often further than you think

I see it as an iceberg... others never see what's below the surface or deep you really go..