On the road, at fordable rivers be sure to hire carriers to take you across. If you cross by yourself to avoid a little expense, or because you think you are an expert in the water, and then the horse stumbles and the baggage gets soaked, or you get an underling injured, that is a big blunder.
As for those who board the ferry at Yokkaichi or take a boat at Awazu thinking to take a shortcut, they are extremely foolish. If you run into a squall while riding on the boats of Kuwana, the way everybody goes, then you have an excuse. But if you go to the trouble on your own initiative to take a byway and something goes wrong, then you have no excuse.
Therefore a poem by an ancient says,
Even if crossing Arrow Bridge
Is a shortcut for a warrior,
If you’re in a hurry take the roundabout way –
The long bridge of Seta.
This instruction does not apply to only a journey; one should have this attitude in regard to all things.
Bushido Shoshinshu | Taira Shigesuke
Shortcuts can cut stories short.
Purity of dedication is required to become a master; so a master rarely takes shortcuts or skips practice. Most likely they have taken shortcuts in the past and experienced negativity that did not kill them so they learned their lesson. Hopefully.
Even if you are not active on the path due to choice or exhaustion or limitation, there are passive procedures to continue progressing. Visualization and contemplation is always available. Books, Videos, and audios about the path are available and new mediums to convey information will continue to be created.
Confidence is gained following the path because you get to measure how far you have come, so you know how far you can go. This applies to all things.
Those who have traveled far down their path understand themselves and the path begin to merge. They can do things without thinking about it now. Years of practice and dedication lay the path before them clearly; a way to the next destination. The path is a guide that possesses the dedicated traveler. They don’t care about perfection, although they pursue it; they understand that perfection is not the reward they seek; the reward is loyalty to the path. A reason to forever grow. True purpose.
Those who would take shortcuts are being unfaithful in their relationships with their paths. The more you do this, the more pain you experience.
You must will your loyalty to the path. Will takes you farther than talent.
Professionals do not take shortcuts.
Shortcuts Insult Purpose
Everything you do matters. How you’re breathing right now. Your posture. What you ate yesterday, what you want to eat today. How often you brush your teeth. Who you decide to be friends with. Who you decide to have sex with and how that sexual encounter plays out. If you choose a job for the money, for survival, or for passion.
Your brain is a camera that records and analyzes everything you do. Your sleep cycle is a watchman that analyzes the day and takes notes on what he sees.
Your brain is a OVERWORKED watchman.
It’s overworked so it looks for patterns and memorizes them to save energy. Your brain uses 20% of your daily caloric intake.
When you take shortcuts you teach your brain that shortcuts are acceptable, or worse, a good thing. Procrastination is a short cut to leisure time that has not been earned by depletion of Spirit, Mind, and Body reserves.
Brains follow the patterns they are programmed and they are always watching. Being lazy is a pattern. So is aggressively pursuing what you love. Behaviors we repeat become habits. They are difficult to change but you must be mentally willing and capable to change habits that are no longer serving you.
Being Lazy is A Terrible Habit to Have
Lazy is dangerous. It reduces your prepared state which reduces your luck magnetism.
Lazy moves you closer to a worse version of yourself.
Try becoming the best version of yourself.
Motivation is A Form of Procrastination in Many Circumstances
Consuming “motivational” content, in particular videos, is a form of procrastination. In motivation, you are not taking anything from the individual you are watching. Instead, you’re trying to absorb their emotions. Because emotions are temporary, this is ineffective.
Opposed to motivation, would be understanding an individual, place, or thing that motivates you, so you can steal permanent identity components including habits that will make you increasingly similar to what you admire. Learn the biographies of who you admire. Avoid watching a highlight real of their life’s highs to try and feel like they did in one of their highs.
Efficiency Isn’t Lazy.
Doing something better should always be pursued. Think about this in all things you do. Purposeful improvement is efficiency. This creates opportunity.
The professional does not look for shortcuts; he looks for the faster, better route. The one with more opportunity.
Lazy is not making your bed because it doesn’t matter; you’re going to sleep tonight anyways. Order flourishes at home. Making your bed is maintaining the habit for pursuing order, which waterfalls into all things. Making your bed is a minute, disciplined habit that will make discipline in other challenging habits easier to stay married to.
You don’t have to do anything. Choosing to make your bed reinforces the mental loop that you take the correct way instead of the risky and troublesome shortcut. It reinforces a pure relationship with the path which is required for a fulfilling life, but not ultimately for survival.
Do not be lead by emotions
Lead your emotions which will mold them to the path that you want to follow. The path is more important and fulfilling than giving yourself what you feel today. While making your bed may not matter, your brain is watching and creating patterns, so small decisions matter.
Discipline is the right answer for each question. Leisure must be earned through discipline, or else leisure is spoiled indulgence.
What Is A Shortcut?
Shortcuts are reactions to a believed-to-be-true or true desperation or lust for additional time before a pending outcome. Sometimes taking a shortcut can be the result of anxiety about time. Anxiety is dangerous and should be managed and dispersed of quickly. The Samurai believed life was preparation for inevitable death and that one should meditate upon their death so they can be prepared for it and understand what is truly important in life.
Shortcuts are voluntary risks. The youth have a greater tolerance for risk because they know less about consequence.
Shortcuts create failures. Failures are lessons that can be learned, or not.
Obviously, you should learn from your lessons.
HOWEVER
If you can learn without consequential lessons, you can avoid consequences. Such is wisdom.
Shortcuts take away potential. Your paths allow you greater potential as a reward for continued service. Shortcuts are hazy switchback paths that lead somewhere you may not wanna go.
Discipline is Better With Momentum
Discipline needs a push start to get going like an old car. It needs some time to warm up to run well. Making your bed in the morning is a little warm up for big discipline needed for the day. It also helps to get you to the path first thing in the morning.
The professional does not engage the profession moderately. Moderation is for the average. To be great is to go farther than the average.
The path never stops and neither do competitors and friends who are on the same paths as you.
Samurai means to serve.
Be in service of the path the majority of your life for fulfillment.
It’s unpleasurable to follow a path that does not correlate to your identity.
Instead of Shortcuts
Do all of the work. The reward is the process. True Masters do all of the work, because they are in love with it.
Look to innovate without sacrificing quality or experience. Conduct tests along the paths; test often and continually look for improvements to make. Embrace the harder path that has greater rewards. Avoid the harder path that has greater pain and lesser rewards. This path is easier to avoid when you are avoiding it by moving forward. Sometimes the hard path is forced upon you because you did not move forward towards a path with greater rewards.
When you suffer, collect the lessons and extract as much wisdom as possible to avoid the same circumstance as well as similar circumstances as well as distant circumstances that are undesirable.
Even if crossing Arrow Bridge
Is a shortcut for a warrior,
If you’re in a hurry take the roundabout way –
The long bridge of Seta.