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"I believe the real reason we pursue anything in life is not for the thing itself, but for who we become on the way to its accomplishment. We strive to accomplish things in the attempt to mold ourselves. The greatest benefits Jiu Jitsu will have in your life will have nothing to do with Jiu Jitsu. It is this simple understanding that allows me to persist in my study. Even on the rare days when I may not have a burning desire to practice Jiu Jitsu, I am reminded that my practicing Jiu Jitsu is more accurately my practicing to become a better human being. The lessons I learn on the mat will serve me in every area of life-- personal development, relationships, business, and the like."
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"Anyone can criticize. It is important to be a person who can appreciate and show the way to betterment."

"The triumph can't be had without the struggle."

"The best of us must sometimes eat our words."

"I am who I am because the tears of my past have watered the magnificence of my present."

"Religious persecutors are not believers, they are rascals."

"The "growing" we attribute to becoming more mature, could be more accurately described as "shrinking", as we cut away the nonsense that emotionally weighs us down."

"Whoever blushes is already guilty; true innocence is ashamed of nothing."

"I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself."

"Appreciation is a better motivator than pain."

"I am talking about misery and all of its implications."
Explore more quotes by Chris Matakas

"The best indicator of a man's philosophy is not what he reads or says, but the way in which he lives his life, the way in which he acts."

"We are the estranged orphans of our nations and tribes, and we now bear the weight not of survival of the group but of personal identity."

"We see that the vast majority of our suffering is needless, and simply arises from the misidentification with our thinking mind."

"Jiu Jitsu gives me an ideal to strive toward. Technical mastery lies on an infinite continuum and completion of this skill is impossible. Every time I train I have something that I can improve upon, and this will hold true for each and every training session that lies between me and my grave."

"Your potential for growth is directly proportionate to the degree to which you are willing to make mistakes."

"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."

"I wanted to get to the most essential aspect of my being, and look around for a while. I wanted to explore what I am in my most basic self. I wanted to chip away at all of the nonsense I have acquired through my twenty-nine years on this earth. I wanted to find truth. Thoreau went to the woods. I went to the mats. Jiu Jitsu has peeled the veil of daily life, and has shown me what lies beyond the curtain. We willingly accept the chains that circumstance forces upon us, and we grow to find comfort in them. We attach various fetters of day-to-day living to our being, and we do so with a smile. We accept these constraints for they come in the way of comfort. We accept conformity for it appears the path of least resistance. We strive toward the middle, and we run from ourselves."

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