神社を尽くして天命を待つ
Jinji wo tsukushite tenmei wo matsu
Do your best and leave the rest to fate
A warrior appreciates effort because they understand that nobody will ever see their toil. To reach the pinnacle in any endeavor, the hardest thing to do is to simply put in the work. The rest they say is up to the gods. The other day, I saw a video of a woman who is a one-woman band street performer. Usually, I would poo-poo something like this as being a waste of time and turn it off. For some reason, I watched the whole video and on a certain level I found myself enjoying it because I think I empathized with what it must have taken her to get to this level. I smiled as I thought about her toiling away as she built these instruments, learned to play them, learned a song, and then mustered the courage to perform it for the first time. This process is similar to the warrior who labors day in and day out honing skills that they may never get the unfortunate opportunity to use. The warrior believes that if a person does their best then they will be successful. In Japanese, the word for “effort” or “doing one’s best” is doryoku (努力) which literally translates as “the power to be diligent.” The more a warrior trains, the more they learn to respect another’s efforts. This is the same reason why a warrior respects their opponents. They realize and respect how much effort is required for their opponent to face them on the opposite side of the battlefield. It’s easy to see people’s shortcomings or when they fail but it’s much harder to see their efforts and know what’s in their hearts. A warrior creates their own destiny and so they know that anyone who puts forth the effort and puts themselves out there deserves our appreciation and respect.
Today’s goal: Good or bad, try to see another person’s efforts and understand what it took for them to get to that level.