You Hold the Power to Save Lives

I’m deviating away from my recollections of my early days in karate to discuss a question raised by a serious young instructor who asked how I decide who to select for membership in my dojo.

Imagine you were a doctor and traveled to a primitive land, where you discovered that thousands of children were dying daily from a deadly disease which you could cure with a shot of the antibiotics you carried in your medical bag. But most of those who had the disease didn’t realize they were sick – although you could read the subtle early symptoms clearly. And those who knew they were sick didn’t trust Western medicine, thinking only a witch doctor, herbal medicines, or blood offering to a deity could cure them.

If you knew thousands and thousands of children would surely die early deaths unless you could find a way to get them to agree to the shot, would you have a duty to find a way to get them to take it? Or would it be enough to simply tell yourself they didn’t want it so what more could you do? (Or, worse yet, feel that since they were so ignorant, they deserved what they got.)

I believe we’re in a very similar land. Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, die each year from illnesses that could be cured with something you alone within your local community have the ability to give them.

How many do you imagine die each year from heart disease, lung and colon cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, high blood pressure, obesity, high cholesterol, stroke, diabetes, and other diseases? The last statistics show that almost 2.5 million die each year. And a significant percentage of them die from preventable causes.

These latter die from illnesses that arise due to a lack of the self discipline and self control necessary to make the right choices in life.

People who fail to follow healthy lifestyles don’t do so because they don’t know what’s best for them. How many today don’t know that smoking is unhealthy… yet continue to smoke? How many today aren’t aware that they need to regulate the quantity and types of food they eat… yet continue to eat in an unhealthy manner? How many today don’t know they should get regular exercise… yet don’t get off their couches? How many today don’t know drugs or excess alcohol consumption will surely lead to early deaths… yet never slow down?

Everyone knows all of this, yet do it anyway.

People don’t fail to make healthy choices in their lives because they’re stupid. They merely lack the self discipline and self control necessary to make the right choices in life.

In the old days, most children gained self discipline and self control in three places - home, school, and church. But no more. In fact, laws have been enacted in this country to prevent parents from disciplining their children as they think most effective and schools from disciplining children or even teaching moral or ethical values. And church attendance in many parts of this country has unfortunately dropped significantly over the last 50 years.

The only places remaining within most American communities today are us.

As such, I believe we have a duty to reach out to as many people as possible within our local communities, a crusade of sorts, and do whatever is necessary to get them to “take the shot”, to get involved in your school. Then, you must work equally hard to keep them there long enough to instill in them critically needed self discipline and self control.

This is not in any way to downplay the value of instruction in self defense skills. In fact, we must make our young students proficient in defending themselves. Without that ability, they are still vulnerable to potentially destructive peer pressure. But when a teenager is able to defend him or herself, they don’t need the security of the group. They possess the self confidence necessary to not only achieve greatness in many areas of life but to also say and live “NO”.

Realistically self confident kids (those with real skill) don’t need to pacify their peers, to do what their peers want them to do in order to fit in or gain the approval or security of the group, who may lead them to drink, smoke, use drugs, join gangs, etc. Their peer group should need to gain their approval, not vice versa. My teenage students have become the leaders within their peer groups, not one of the compliant followers. And, since they possess the inner strength (from their self defense skill and their self discipline and self control) to make the right choices in life, they become positive role models for their peers to follow.

What would your local community look like, how would it change for the better, if a large percentage of your local residents were involved in your school? What would happen to teen drug and alcohol problems? Gangs? Childhood obesity? And so on?

It would change significantly for the better!

They’d run the drug dealers and gangs out of town.

You have within your hands a life-saving gift. Do you keep it to yourself and only share it with a handful? Or do you seek out and share it with everyone within your community who could use it?

I think you should do the latter.

Thanks for reading the ramblings of an old karateka.