AN INSIGHT ON COURTESY, LOYALTY, RESPECT, PERSEVERANCE, HONOR, INTEGRITY AND SELF-CONTROL
As the initial focused installment for “The Way of the Warrior”, the easy part was deciding what to address. Framing the direction to get that message across would prove a challenge. Here’s why.
Almost everyone recognizes that at its core, a black belt represents “excellence”. Exactly what kind of excellence varies, depending on the individual’s perspective. It evokes numerous possibilities from self-defense, to academics, to business, and it is often analogous to anything that is being defined as the highest ranking.
Deep down, there still is something more. It is the strength of character of the person who earns that rank. And, it is the traits that they develop through practice, failure, goal-setting, and achievement of personal best performance along the journey to their next level of rank. It is the civil-nature born from courtesy, loyalty, respect, perseverance, honor, integrity, self-control, and indomitable spirit that drives them to do the right thing, just as much as to do it with excellence.
Sadly, in our everyday world, these tenets of civility are not so common. Somewhere along the line, we have changed the meaning of “civil” from what Webster’s defines as relating to ordinary citizens and their concerns; courteous and polite, well-mannered gentlemanly; ladylike, etc., to what the Urban Dictionary now defines as to be “okay with someone; good, fashionable; hip; cool”. The differences in the meaning of the word are as equally different as the perspectives that people hold in regard to what really matters.
In a recent Johns Hopkins Health Review article entitled “Civility”, the author, Elisabeth Dahl, frames the work of Daniel L. Buccino, Johns Hopkins Clinical Director of Mood Disorders and the Civility Initiative. Buccino asserts that “civility begins with the individual.” It is a responsibility that is rooted in respect.
Therein lies the root of what matters. Respect. To get respect, one has to be able to give respect. It is earned. The cliché is accurate. Make no mistake, opinions matter too. However, without respectful dialog, there is no civility. We are left to struggle with dilemmas proliferated by people who want to be “cool”, who want to kick and punch or take a time-out but who do not lead. So, in answer to the question at the top of this blog, “What really does Matter” — “Black Belts Matter”, along with the excellence and personal character traits necessary to achieve personal growth and civil improvement.
Not everyone achieves the rank but everyone can strive to do what is right and to improve the conditions we are facing. Through realistic dialog, goal-setting, respect, courtesy, perseverance, integrity, and self-control we can recapture our indomitable spirit and lead The Way; perhaps even changing the World one Black Belt at a time.
