Now and Here

It is assumed that as a samurai, you have already decided that the fight you are going to engage in is important enough to spend your life on, otherwise you should be elsewhere. Richard Babin, Iaido Sword: Kamimoto-Ha Techniques of Muso Shinden Ryu

Quite interesting, and applicable for nearly everything - if you are doing something not that important for you, it is time to think how to avoid doing this altogether.

The life is quite short, we should not waste it. On the other hand, we should not be afraid. Anyway, we are going to die, it can happen any moment. I believe the best we can do is to strive to die something that matters. Perhaps it would be a good practice to ask ourselves: is it OK if I die doing what I am just going to do?

This attitude does not stem only from Eastern mysticism - it is present at the core of our Western culture as well - just peruse through the pages of the Bible. We only tend to forget it, and that is our fault, for which there are no excuses.