Tai Chi Challenge # 16 - Keep your feet on the ground while shooting for the stars
Our lives are beginning to return to normal with classes slowly opening up across the country. With that in mind, this will be our last Tai Chi challenge. From now on our focus will be bending towards reopening classes and serving our community once more. Today’s challenge will be a little different, it’s one that you can carry forwards for as long as you like, it’s not so much a, ‘what we do’, and more of a, ‘how we approach what we do’. Take a look at the pic below. What comes to mind? What do we see? The first interpretation is often to do with the pursuit of our dreams, essentially, ‘don’t give up’. Generally, very positive. Digging a little deeper, there are difficulties, ‘the rhino shouldn’t be trying to be a unicorn, it should be the best rhino it can, because that’s what it is’. True... Or, A rhino is a rhino, a unicorn is a unicorn, the rhino is real, the unicorn is a myth, it doesn’t exist. To try to be a unicorn is foolish, it can never be achieved and therefore to try is a waste of effort. Hmmmm. I feel it can be seen in a different way. A rhino will always be a rhino, real on this earth. A unicorn doesn’t exist, it’s an idea, not a reality. But that’s just a detail. That doesn’t make its pursuit any less valid, or beneficial. As is said, ‘Reach for the moon, even if you fall short, you’re still among the stars.’ Tai Chi is about Yin and Yang. The mutual coexistence of opposites within a dynamic harmony. If I can hold two seemingly opposing thoughts simultaneously, I can reap the rewards of both. If I am ceaselessly striving for a goal I know I cannot achieve, that striving can take me much further than I could ever had achieved otherwise. As long as we continue to understand that not achieving the goal is far different from failure, then our efforts will continue to yield progress. Challenge 15: Choose your goal and pursue it honestly with an open heart. Keep your feet on the ground while shooting for the stars and see how far you can get… Enjoy!
Ross Cousens