I am in training

         I am in training, always.  I am training to get stronger.  I am training to be more flexible and mobile.  I am training my brain daily by reading and with puzzles.  I am training to be more calm through meditation.  I am training to be a kinder person through mindful acts of kindness.  I am training to be a better friend, husband, sibling, son, by working on myself.  I am training to be a better leader by engaging more with my peers.  I am training to be a better acupuncturist by learning new material and new techniques.  I am training to be a martial artist with my Kung Fu, and my Kung Fu is helping me train all the other areas.

        I may take breaks in my training to reflect and just be, and to see what my training has brought me; but I am never done.  I'll be training the rest of my life, always striving to improve upon the last benchmark I set for myself.  Some days I don't train very much, or feel like I didn't get much out of it; other days I feel like I learned a lot.  Sometimes I fail hard at my training, and other times I succeed.  Either way, my training is always adding up, cumulating into something bigger, as long as I don't neglect it.  Even when I'm the teacher, I will still be training, trying to understand my student and how to more effectively give them the knowledge that has been passed down to me.

        Just because I will always be in training, doesn't mean I'm never satisfied with myself.  On the contrary, it is because I keep working on improving that I feel satisfied.  

"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." Bruce Lee