When I was about 14 years old, my parents signed me up to a martial art class. I wasn’t doing much sport at that time and I was becoming a bit chubby. I will never forget what the master said to me during my first lesson : “Welcome to your first day. As you train with us today, imagine that you lay a paper sheet on the floor in front of you. A page. From now on, for each day you will train, remember to lay another page on top of the previous. If you miss a day of training, you remove a page from the stack.
The height of your stack of paper will be as high as your commitment allows, the amount of things you won’t be able to achieve are the same as the pages that you will remove from your stack”
Since then I often measured things in that way, using an imaginary paper stack in my head.
Since Covid-19 started, it feels like time has been re-set. In one way or another many people are starting to think in a pre-Covid and post-Covid way. It looks like we have given the concepts of time and opportunity a much deeper meaning. We care a lot more about time, it is natural, especially after being forced to stay at home. After having lost our liberty, time suddenly became more precious.
So in this mindset, and with my martial art master wisdom in mind, I have been thinking about the importance of not missing opportunities.
The importance of making sure that we use the time we have in the right way. To make sure we start laying our pages on the floor, one by one. Good pages. And that we keep doing it. For example keep exercising and eating well.
Ditching unhealthy habits. Recycle.
Waste less.
Make post-Covid the start of a better version of yourself, which in turn will become a better version of the world around you.
Let’s not miss the chance. Let’s not stop adding pages. Good pages.