Chris Matakas Quotes - Page 2

You have been blessed to stand on the shoulders of giants. Make sure that someone stands on yours as well. This is the only way of human progress.

The point of meditating is not to learn to sit quietly in a room. The point is to live that way in the world.

This constant mental diatribe and the frustrations, worries, insecurities and muscular tension that ensues are the self.

It was my letting go that gave me a better hold.

Being part of the whole, as I grow so does that which contains me.

When you realize you are no longer made of glass, you lose the desire to demonstrate that fragility in others.

In the present moment, no past achievement has any bearing, but we perpetually bring ourselves into the here and now; we are our constant companion. By carving the ineffable nature of my soul, rather than simply pursuing the "W," I am able to bring all of my past accomplishments with me into the present. They do hold bearing on today, not because of what I have done, but because of who I have become. This is what matters.

It is only when we admit our ignorance that we can hope to overcome it.

We call it training. Not because we are training for Jiu Jitsu. We are training for life.

I can think of no more worthwhile aim than pursuing mastery in this craft while transcending one's own limitations.

I do not begin to think that I could possibly understand its inner-workings and the deepest truths of the cosmos with the 28 years that I have lived in Central New Jersey of the United States of America.

Devoting yourself to a particular art is invaluable. The art becomes our vehicle with which we drive down the road of life. We use this vehicle to learn about ourselves and this place, to conquer fears, to become more of what we already are. In my own life, I have found most valuable the transferable skills of learning from jiu jitsu to all other facets of day to day study. In devoting myself with such commitment to this art, in undertaking the task of understanding jiu jitsu to whatever degree by circumstance allows, I have unknowingly learned how to learn.

There are no trophies for the real victories in life.

In the modern world we are surrounded by so much abundance that we cannot see it.

I have found that the morning is far more accessible when a good book awaits you.

Deep down I believe each of us is a well-spring of understanding and wisdom, but we simply never allow the space or time for this understanding to rise to the level of conscious thought.

Any advanced student will tell you the best way to recover guard is simply not to get your guard passed in the first place.

We see that happiness is not comfort. Happiness is the freedom to choose one's own way.

I believe it is the responsibility of each of us to pass on whatever we have learned in our time here. If I reach enlightenment after meditating in a cave for 10 years, but do not pass on this teaching and it dies with me, this was a wasted life. I believe we are here to help one another, and each of us has a unique wisdom that we should do our best to convey to others.

Our social contract is becoming an exchange of free thought for mindless stimuli.

No one's life will be harder because I exist.

We are now forced to actively pursue our struggles. If we do not go out of our way to stretch our comfort zones and grow, no one nor nature will do it for us.

Who you are as a person far outweighs what you do in an athletic arena.

I have seen far by seeing through the lens of Jiu Jitsu. I have exchanged a great deal of physical health for these insights, and these were trades worth making. My efforts were worth the return. I have sacrificed much in the name of this craft. Not for trophies or belts or prestige. For these fall away like dust. I pursued this art so fervently because it was not actually Jiu Jitsu I pursued. It was myself.

I believe we must pursue mastery for who we become along the way in its achievement. When we progress in Jiu Jitsu, that newfound experience and wisdom transcends into all areas of our lives. We use Jiu Jitsu as the vehicle for growth, but that growth radiates over all of human activity. Someone who devotes time and energy in learning this skill is learning far more than how to subdue an opponent. The student learns persistence, perseverance, pattern recognition, problem solving, and most importantly, learning how to learn. In the arena of life, these virtues are far more valuable than any guard pass.

In my own life, I have always viewed personal mastery as simply a medium through which I become capable of providing more service toward my fellow man.

Properly directed thoughts result in properly directed actions. The only way to appropriately guide our thoughts is to know their foundation, our values.

Thoreau and Huxley calmly state what I have spent years trying to articulate, and never found the words for doing so. To read the words of these great men is to read the highest expression of my very self which is inexpressible due to the shortcomings of my particular nature.

There is an opportunity cost for everything we do. This is why we must have the awareness to ensure that what we are pursuing is really what we value, because the pursuit leaves countless lost opportunities in its wake. We choose one experience at the sacrifice of all other experiences.

There is no higher calling than the service of your fellow man, and to do so through your own personal mastery of a craft is a gift enjoyed by few.

In whatever we do, we should be investing in ourselves and not our jobs. Everything I have ever pursued has been for the sole goal of who I was becoming in its achievement. I competed and fought because of the man I became. This is the only worthwhile victory. You cannot take the trophies with you.

Habits are infinitely more beneficial to the aspiring student than motivation. Motivation may get you started, but habits keep you going.

We seek to understand Jiu Jitsu as a vehicle to understand ourselves. We have different explicit goals, from getting in shape, learning self-defense or competition, but tacitly we all seek mastery of ourselves.

We can lose the roll, we can lose position, but we can constantly strive to win the moment.

After I received my blue belt, I soon recognized that the belts were simply an external representation of an inner experience, and that they mattered little compared to the person I was becoming.

Many of us begin this art with little to no understanding of what we are getting ourselves into. Then, maybe a year or a black belt later, we realize this odyssey we have embarked upon and rest happily in knowing we have chosen a noble struggle.I think we owe most of our successes to our initial ignorance. When we begin, we cannot see the obstacles ahead, and so we march on optimistically. In hindsight, when we look back and connect the dots, we see just how green we were at the start, and it was only our ignorance that upheld us from the crushing despair of the task at hand.

Service, it seems, is the only antidote to existential frustration.

By becoming a black belt, you will become whatever it is you wanted to be in the first place, and Jiu Jitsu will have served its aim.

Society is a collection of selves perpetuating their myth.

If you are fortunate enough to have a particular activity with which you find greatest joy and technical success, it is your responsibility as a growing human being to continue that study. Whatever your endeavor, if you can expand upon the knowledge in your strongest subject, that new found understanding of all things will trickle down to every other area of your life.

This philosophy teaches us to leave safe harbor for the rough seas of real-world experience, and to accept that a rough copy out in the world serves us far greater than a masterpiece sitting quietly on our shelves.

The only way to consistently perform at your potential is to ask: Am I better than I was yesterday?

If Jiu Jitsu does not make you a better father, son, mother, daughter, wife or husband, you are missing the point. If Jiu Jitsu does not leave you viewing strangers in a kinder light, you are missing the point. If you are not better equipped to deal with the vicissitudes of life due to your training, then you are not really training.

Jiu Jitsu is a baptism by combat, and serves a purpose in the inner life of the individual that has always existed, but our modern culture fails to acknowledge.

I envision a world in which the vast majority of us are actively striving toward our potential by serving others through mediums we are most passionate.

Words make the intangible aspects of human experience communicable, and a single sentence can shatter our world view and assist us in the formulation of a new one.

The rare opportunity to exist, no matter how brief, is worth the pain left in the wake of its disappearance.

Jiu Jitsu is the vehicle. Not the road.

The greatest effects we have on the world are the ones we can never see.

It is a shock to many college graduates that their segway into the real world is one of obligation, profound debt, and countless sacrifices of the soul.

Systems and processes will always surpass motivation.

Anyone who has ever achieved anything has been a steward of his potential.

The more specifically you define your goals the more attainable they become.

I believe that which you study is only matched in importance by the sincerity with which you approach it.

You have become more and therefore expect more, but never become too purpose-driven to step back and realize just how far you have progressed.

The very fact that you can observe this thinking mind is proof that you are not this thinking mind.

It is important to realize that we so often define ourselves by what is in opposition to ourselves.

Mastery, to whatever degree your circumstance allows, is determined by a handful of choices repeated daily.

I am acutely aware that all I have been able to achieve has been in large part due to circumstances outside my control. This is why I teach, and this is why I write. I want to be one of those opportunities for others. Perhaps this is the true measure of success.

The knowledge you acquire in an area of study is accompanied by an incalculable ignorance. The farther we get into anything, we learn that we have even farther to go.