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| Warrior Work Week 10 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Integrating Musashi's 9 Principles In the last 9 weeks we looked at Musashi's 9 broad principles of strategy. Every one of those principles employs the concept of looking at both the big picture and the little picture of your life and "researching it deeply". He calls it the "ox's neck and the rat's head". Tom Brown who wrote a number of books about his apprenticeship with an apache shaman and scout uses the terms "the track and the trail". Whatever metaphor suits you, the concept is the same; shift your perception and awareness from your large goals and intent to the situation at hand and then back to your intent and work at integrating the two harmoniously as you move forward. Deal with the reality of things and not with the what if's and could have and should have's. Learn from defeats and intend to continue to build your knowledge, power and inner harmony. Some of the wisest and most loving people I have had the honor to know have also had the most pain, conflict and tragedy in their lives. Instead of just focusing on their pain, they shift their eyes to see the big picture of their life and how their path is being directed onto a new trail - down that path a ways, they inevitably find it was better then the old trail they were so attached to. You often hear them remark, "I thought it was really bad at the time but now I can see how it really was for the best and I like who I am evolving into. I can't believe I was so attached to that old world." In looking back at the trail of their lives, old people seldom regret what they did - they regret what they didn't do. What do you want to do on the trail, the path, the tao of your life? Keep an eye on the tracks you make every day - they become the trail. Also go back and look at each principle and see how well you can shift between the rat's head and ox's neck. By Peter Hill, Copyright 2004 www.getittogether.net Week 11>> |