I’m Not the Hero of This Story

I stopped recording. As usual, I said: "No excuses" at the end of my video. For the hundredth time. Probably more.

Don't quit. Don't stop. Keep showing up.

I've said it all over the past year. As if I'm on some hero's journey.

Pretending to be someone, something, I’m probably not...

The stoic sensei. The ever-disciplined warrior. The unwavering man. The humble seeker...

Or some other persona that inhabits me while I'm recording.

The Japanese say there are 3 selves.

The one you portray to the outer world - for friends.

The private persona - one who most don't see - for family.

And the true self, the one you really are. The hidden core - your essence.

There is a fourth... the one you aspire to be. The one you sometimes act as... the "fake it until you make it" persona.

I'm not saying there aren't some who are genuinely kind or humble or what not... but we all put on a face. Especially for social media. Let's face it, it's a curated medium of how you want people to see you.

And for those of us who create - who post, who teach, who put ourselves out there regularly - it becomes a trap. You build a persona. And then you have to maintain it. Even on the days you can't.

I feel down a lot. Depressed even.

I rarely show it or talk about it... because it's not what we do. Especially when you're supposed to be this strong, disciplined, mentally tough individual. A man.

Just about every week, a thought goes through my head that makes me want to quit martial arts, teaching, training...

To just stop.

I did once.

I walked away from it all. About 20 years ago.

I told my sensei I am retiring from martial arts... and walked away. That's a whole another story, but that feeling of wanting to quit. It's never left me.

But I haven't. And I won't.

Still, there’s that inner quitting voice:

"Why am I even doing this".

"Why does it even matter?"

"No body cares about this..."

"This is so damn stupid!"

That deep feeling of angst in the pit of your stomach. The dread you can’t escape. The nausea of it.

Feeling like you have zero worth. Nothing to give. Nothing to share. Yet the very thing I sometimes abhor is also in some ways a life line.

It's knowing that I can't stop... even if I want to.

It's like being some kind of a drug addict... knowing it's bad for you but still do it. It feels toxic... yet sometimes it feels amazing.

It feels empty... yet it's full.

Then there's what happens when the mask slips in public.

When someone post something serious. Often… crickets.

No one cares... or even worse, they’ll tell you to “man up!” - stop throwing a pity party and get over it.

Sometimes you see people talk about their depression and no one responds...

Then they kill themselves.

I’ve had a few friends who killed themselves.

They never spoke about it to anyone. Although there were some things that pointed to it on their social media accounts. I spoke to a couple of them about it during those dark times, but never really knew the whole story.

A few years back, I was talking to a friend. He told me he was struggling mentally… I told him to seek help. Talk to someone properly… he said he was fine.

A few days later, he was dead.

I was gutted.

Maybe I should have taken it more seriously. Spoken to his family about it…

It’s amazing some of the things people say, when someone takes their own life. An acquaintance of mine texted me asking if the “rumors of the suicide was true”.

I told him yes.

Then he had the audacity to tell me, “I have no respect for such actions, it's the stuff of cowards in my opinion.”

What an asshole.

It's bullshit.

I've carried that for years.

I was sitting in this small dojo in LA… drinking some tea while seated on tatami mats with two esteemed teachers of martial arts.

The first, my sensei at the time, a man who had trained for decades in Japan and well versed in traditional Japanese arts as well as more modern budo like judo and Karate. The second, a small compact man I had met some years prior, who was a teacher of Aikido and Karate.

Both are men I’d call “men of budo” (武道 – martial way).

Both high rank across multiple arts.

Both married to fellow practitioners of the arts – Japanese women.

Neither had children.

We were talking about what it means to be a budo-ka. The toll it takes. The sacrifices you make.

My teacher looked up, looked at me with a serious, almost grim expression on his face.

"Jun-kun," he said, "you choose either budo or family. You can't have both."

The other sensei nodded.

They weren't being cruel. They were being honest - practitioner to practitioner. They had done the math. They had made their choice with open eyes. And they were looking at me and seeing someone who hadn't done it yet.

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard this exact thing.

I had heard the same sentiment from another high level Japanese martial artist years prior. That you can’t be a man of budo and have a proper family.

I had a feeling they were right.

But I already had a family. And I kept training. And I kept working. And I kept telling myself I was doing it for them, or because of who I was, or because nothing comes between me and my training… which is what I'd told my girlfriend before she became my wife.

She'd come and sit by the mat while I trained. For years.

She thought she was signing up for a dedicated man. She didn't know it was a lifelong condition.

An obsession.

Neither did I, really. Especially not what it would cost.

It wasn't budo that was the problem. It wasn't work. The pattern was me. Single-minded. Self-obsessed. Using discipline as cover for selfishness. Showing up to everything except what really should have mattered.

My relationships suffered.

And it's all on me.

Not the training.

Not the demands of the job. Not the displacement, not the difficult childhood, not the search for Mr. Miyagi - all of which are real, all of which I've written about - but none of which are the point.

The point is that I was the villain of my own story, and I kept waiting for someone else to name it.

No one did. Not for a long time.

Anthony Bourdain - chef, writer, professional truth-teller - once wrote that for most of his life he'd been "too far up his own ass to be of any use to anyone."

Sounds about right.

I read that line and recognized something I hadn't had language for. Not the drugs, not the kitchens, but that particular flavor of self-absorption that masquerades as passion.

As dedication. As the pursuit of something larger than yourself.

It isn't.

Sometimes it's just selfishness with better posture.

The accountability mirror isn't a bathroom scale.

It's not your rank or your title or your years on the mat. It's not whether you show up to train every day… though I do, and I think that matters.

It's whether you can look at the full picture of your life… the missed calls, the absent years, the people who accommodated a version of you that was never fully present - and say it plainly and truthfully.

Last week, I was not doing good mentally. I left the dojo earlier than usual.

I was frustrated... I don't know about what. Finding myself in the same spot, feeling the same feelings of pointlessness.

I just wanted to get out of there.

I wasn't mentally good to teach. To be the guy my students and friends needed me to be. Expected me to be.

I drove home in silence. No music. No podcasts or audiobooks playing. Just the darkness of the road ahead... the hum of my car, the brake lights in the distance.

I got home, opened the door.

My dog came running. I sat down for a minute... she knew. Came over and put her head on my lap.

We sat there for a minute.

Then got up, grabbed her leash... stepped out into the unseasonably warm night.

And ran.

Along the busy street. Cars rushing by.

My bare feet feeling the concrete... the asphalt.

The clicks of my dog’s paws as they hit beside me.

So who am I really?

I'm no hero character... I've never been.

I'm often selfish, self-centered, egotistical, difficult man; that has lied, cheated and stolen...

I'm not the good guy.