Sharpening the Sword

How does one evolve and become better? Why should one want to progress? And, what does it take? I like to call this process "Sharpening the Sword". In the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey he talks about "sharpening the saw" which is based on a very similar premise - growing. He states that there are four major sections to work on - our intellectual growth (IQ), our Spiritual growth (SQ), our emotional growth (EQ), and our physical growth (PQ). We all have sections more evolved than others, like Olympic athletes generally have a very high PQ, and Gandhi may have had a very high SQ. However, the more I mature, I see how interconnected all these things are and that they all need work to evolve and balance each other. Why should we grow? Well, the more we grow the deeper fulfillment we have in life, and the greater our joy, accomplishments, love, and overall satisfaction. Does it take work? Yes - and often pain too. We live in a fast fix nation and most people do not want to do the work to evolve. If there is a misconception in the mind they would rather self medicate with an addiction than go into therapy, they resist having a healthy diet and work out plan to train their body, or would rather get the cliff's notes instead of learning something new and becoming wiser from diving into and learning a new topic. We MUST fail forward. I believe the path of a Samurai  is a constant state of evolution, not simply because we want to get somewhere to attain a non-existent perfection- but because we have fallen in love with the process of evolving. Sometimes it is painful when we see and become aware of our blind spots, but there is no path but forward, and ultimately the pain of finding our faults and overcoming them is less painful then the dull ache of avoiding truth and knowing that we are not doing all that we need to do for ourselves to get to the next level. I love growing, almost to a weird obsessive fault, but this is just another something I shall work on... ;) 

Photo by Valera Vulfson