It's easy to get carried away with martial arts training and letting the rest of your life go to hell. Below is an excerpt from an excellent post by Peter Boylan at The Budo Bum, on this very topic. The full post may be read here.
Budo Isn't life. It's training for life.
I was reading an article about a writer who became a carpenter,
but didn’t stop writing, and it made me think about the mistake I
sometimes see people make with budo. Budo is a Way, and as ways go, I
think it is a great one. You can explore strength and conflict, peace
and stability, action and quietude, moving with things without being
moved by them, and many other points that are important in life. For all
that, budo is not life.
I’ve
see a number of people over the years who become so involved with
training in budo that they let the rest of their lives go to hell. They
often become fabulous martial artists, but their personal lives are
train wrecks, with disasters everywhere. These are people who make the
mistake of putting budo training above everything else in their life.
Budo is training for life. When you let the practice become so large
that it squeezes out everything else, including the application of the
training to your real life, you have completely missed the point. In
fact, you’ve failed as a budoka.
Budo
only has meaning in the context of a complete life. When your training
gets in the way of a complete life, you should be asking what’s wrong.
If your only friends are people you train with, why don’t you have time
for anyone else? If budo has replaced all your recreational activities,
why are you becoming so one faceted? If budo is the only thing you
enjoy, why is that?
Excellent
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