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Delightful Lessons Around You

It’s been a month since I got my right eye injured from an accident that happened during Brazilian Jiu Jitsu sparring. My training partner happened to kick the right side of my face and I got the right orbit fractured.

For the first few days, due to inflammation caused by fracture of the orbit, it was hard for me to open my right eye. I could open it, but it was painful when I moved my right eye. I’m not sure if it was brain concussion or this damaged eye, but something made me dizzy and nauseous, too. I took some medicines to get rid of inflammation for 2 weeks.

For these 2 weeks, I couldn’t move around much. My body was completely fine and I could move my body as usual in theory, but whenever I had to move my head, I got dizzy. That was a bit frustrating.

It was an interesting experience, to say the least. I learnt it is inconvenient to live with only one eye open. I learnt my right eye tracks moving objects a lot even though I didn’t think about it at all before I got this injury. I learnt I can stay calm and be positive in this kind of situation.

Probably the reason why I could stay calm is because I knew it could have been worse. I’m glad I didn’t go blind. I’m glad it wasn’t both eyes. I’m glad I didn’t break my teeth (I thought my front teeth were broken when I got kicked in the face). I’m glad I didn’t die. I’m glad I learnt some new things from this experience. I could blame the person who happened to cause this injury or the situation, but that wouldn’t do me any good. Instead, I chose to focus on other, more important things like these delightful lessons.

A while ago, I decided to learn from everything and everyone. It’s not that I consciously ask myself about what I learnt from everything that happened and everyone I met on a daily basis (mental note: why not?), but living with this attitude helped me a lot, I believe. When you choose to learn from everything and everyone, whatever happens to you become a source of growth.

Can you think of any experience that you consider as bad? Is there any way to turn it around – is there any thing you can learn from that experience?

If there is, congratulations. That’ your delightful lesson.

Now. Let me go back to the beginning. It’s been a month since I got this injury. I went back to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training for the first time, and I’m glad I can still play this martial arts. I had to go really slow and be careful, but at least I can move.

In fact, going slow is a great way to improve your skills in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. You’ll have time to reflect on what’s happening and that’s necessary in a learning process. Sadly, a lot of beginners don’t seem to see the benefits of going slow and tend to be tense, even when I tell them to relax and to go slow.

But I can understand this, because I do that in Argentine Tango. I know I should relax, but I don’t know how, especially given that I need to lead my dance partners. While I want to do something about it, I don’t beat myself up, because I don’t need to do that in order to do something about it. No blaming is necessary.

Does this relaxed approach work in your area of speciality? If it does, how? If not, why not?

Writing this personal story and update made me wonder. I know about myself and you probably know a bit about myself if you’ve been reading this blog (by the way, I updated the about page recently). But chances are, I don’t know much about you.

So, in the comment section below, tell me about yourself so I can know who’s reading this blog and connect with you! What are you curious about in your life? What do you love doing? What questions do you have about living a romantic life?