Reflections

Paths Taken, Seasons Weathered, Clarity Found

• By Abel
• August 16, 2015
• No Comments

Just because a particular path is placed in front of you does not always mean you should take it. It just might not lead to your destiny.

Three years ago I started taking karate as a way to help accelerate my weight loss. A friend of mine told me about a school based on a recommendation from her sensei. When I realized the recommended dojo was in the same strip mall right next door to the Weight Watchers center I’d been going to for the last six month and hadn’t even noticed it, I knew I needed to take karate lessons there.

My experience with karate and my teachers there was very good and valuable to me. I learned that I am in fact athletic despite my belief to the contrary. I was able to channel my frustrations and release them from my body by kicking, punching, and screaming during practice. And, I was able to improve my self-confidence and self-esteem by learning the techniques well enough to progress to each subsequent belt level: yellow to orange and eventually to purple. In learning each fighting technique, waza, and grab by practicing them over and over again and again, I learned how I learn – through practice and repetition. This opened up in me a greater desire to try new things and because I’m a perfectionist to learn them and get good at them.

After two years of karate classes I’d tested for and earned all the belts up to and including purple. So I rewarded myself with a much-needed break. I could feel I was exhausting myself by pushing to get to each subsequent level and it was becoming less and less fun. I told myself I was only going to take the month of June off, but not going to class after a long day at work felt good. And I wasn’t getting home at 9 PM sweaty and amped up just in time for bed three work nights a week. That had gotten old. So my one month turned into two and I could feel this season of my life slipping into my past. I had only four belt levels to go before I made it to black belt and I knew I could attain it. But being that close didn’t matter. I’m a high achiever but I realized that what was required in becoming a black belt was no longer worth it to me because my effort had started to become tainted with a bit of grim determination. And I didn’t like how that felt.

I asked myself, “What are you trying to prove and to whom?” The answer was, certainly not me. I realized that my desire to be a black belt was only fueled by thoughts of how impressed people, including my teachers, would be with me. And, I did not want to let my instructors, who had been so patient with me and who helped me get as far as I had, down. One of them told me how impressed he was with my form and then remarked, “I sure hope I’m alive to see you earn your black belt.” I was beaming inside from this praise and I unwittingly picked up a goal that was not mine causing me to continue on the path to black belt, a little while longer.

The reason I had started karate in the first place was to help with my weight loss. After two months away from the dojo I was happily surprised that I was able to keep the 75 pounds that I had lost off by simply walking a little farther every day. As two months turned to six and I was able to continue to maintain my weight loss my reason for doing karate faded and my true lack of desire to become a revered black belt came into focus. At that point I was able to stop following a path, which in the end wasn’t right for me, though I almost forced it. And I had no regrets.

So often in life we stay on a path because we started down it believing the old adage “quitters never win and winners never quit”. I did this with my first career. In 1985 I started down the same career path that a neighbor, the father of a childhood friend, had taken. He had risen to great heights in corporate America and I had been really impressed.  I knew I wanted to be just like him. So I continued down this path despite early indications that it wasn’t right for me. I remained unaware of this for 15 years. In 2005 I determined that I would be much happier in academia as a professor of sociology, teaching and writing about social behavior. But having just finished paying off my huge student loan debt I was not about to jump back in and so I stayed working in corporate America slowly losing the essence of my self day by day, resigned to working in an unfulfilling career for the rest of my life.

Now that I am back in school to learn the skill of life coaching, I have found the path that is right for me. My work experiences are all still valuable and will help me enormously in my coaching practice. My past directions have taught me that every path that comes my way is not always right for me and I now understand that leaving a path I’ve started down (even if I’ve gotten pretty far) doesn’t make me an undisciplined loser.  These lessons of my travels along the scenic route have changed me so that I can fully live my life’s purpose.

Photo Credit: Graham Walton