Punched, Kicked, Kneed, Knocked Out

Punched, Kicked, Kneed, Knocked Out, And you know what? Today is a Great Day
By: Remrie Arrie
3/17/08

I want to say something about ‘Good Days’, whether I’m writing this by myself for myself, or for any off shoot chance someone actually takes interest in this.

When you build good habits it’s important to pick ones that only encourage your growth and commitments through life. Watching TV substituted with riding a bike, videogames substituted with productive board games such as Cashflow 101, sloppy internet time wasting sites like MySpace substituted with educational websites and professional networks, etc. In such habitual conditioning, and when you think about it the habit of creating new habits automatically so you don’t have to force such changes upon your life are infinitely beneficial.

But there is one habit that really makes a difference on your days and this one I’ve been practicing for a while to make it my habit – The habit of saying “It’s a wonderful most fabulous day and I LOVE IT!” without sarcasm.

Let’s think about that for a second…
“It’s a wonderful most fabulous day and I LOVE IT!”
Why is it so wonderful and fabulous? It’s dramatized, nothing exceptional has really happened, sometimes childish depending on the context, maybe even a little embarrassing. But something as common as working out in a gym might be a little un-nerving.

When we create a habit to exercise we condition our bodies to perform redundant activities most of the time for the sake of staying helping. Running in place, lifting weights, pedaling, jumping up and down, and more… But when you think about that if you see anyone doing something like half the stuff we do in a gym you just might think they were down right loopy. And a lot of the motions and activities to becoming fit and healthy are dramatized, nothing exceptional, childish, and ESPECIALLY embarrassing. Anyone who is a first timer at yoga or something like that will likely be apprehensive of spreading their crotch wide open and bending over surrounded by others who might be staring.

The point is, when you say such things as “It’s a wonderful most fabulous day and I LOVE IT!” or some other big declaration about how great today is, you are doing the exact same thing. Okay it might not be exactly like spreading your crotch wide open and bending forward surrounded by on-lookers but I’m sure you get the point.

What you’re doing is you’re exercising your emotional power! You’re giving your happy feel good emotions a work out to make them stronger, and healthier, and making it a habit to do so that way if you’re NOT doing it then you will want to do it more.

Just like being able to bench press 300 pounds or do 30 push ups what you do is you start at 1 and work your way up. Obviously more athletic people by nature can start at a higher number meanwhile you have to start at one; that’s OKAY!!!! Likewise people are naturally more happy go lucky will be able to start at a higher location of making their day and life feel good; if you’re Mr. Grinch 24/7 and you need to start on day one and slowly work your way up that’s okay!

I wasn’t born the happy cheerful person I am, at heart I was but not socially, getting into fights, arrested, complaining about how bad today is every single day turns you into a real sourpuss and I had to start from square one when it came to feeling good every day.
Now I have come to fully understand this… A good day isn’t what you make of it; it’s what you make of yourself.

Again I’ll repeat… A good day isn’t what you make of it; it’s what you make of yourself.

Just like stereotypes of people, we also stereotype days, if it’s racist to say every black guy is bad wouldn’t be equally as racist to say every cloudy/rainy day is bad? There are mild justifications on scientific levels that can go into such days causing people to feel bad, but it’s extremely minute and easily controlled by the human brain as if that effect never existed.

When Zig Ziglar watched his daughter being born on a cold cloudy snowy dreary day do you think he was paying attention to the weather when he held his daughter the first time? And he certainly wasn’t miserable.

What it’s about is taking a situation and changing the context.

What you are doing is taking the situation you are in whether you’re tired, sad, lonely, mad, stressed out, etc and you’re changing the context of the day to refocus your brain on good things rather than bad things about yourself.

Take for example yesterday Monday 3/16/08, From 7 to 9pm the local martial arts class gathers for sparring night. Now I’m no novice to martial arts, I’m a 1st degree black belt with 7 years experience in Tae Kwon Do (kicking), 4 months Judo (Throwing/wrestling), 5 months Aikido (defensive throws), and continuing various other styles to this day. The one I’m in now joins every Monday night and spars (fight) for 2 hours constantly.

Well my background in martial arts is the sports side of it and these guys do the street style of it, and anytime they get serious they easily mop the floor up with my ass. I’m in martial arts for the fun and games of it, recreation and relationship and confidence building, I have no motivation to hurt others I pull every single punch and only go as hard as the person I’m fighting. In a real fight I’d rather kick you in the groin and kick your knee cap out sideways and watch it skip across the street and run away before you ever get in range. These guys do more street fighting when they spar, to them it is as if it were real life, I get kicked in the knees, my foot stepped on, kicked in the groin (pre-operation transgender yes I have balls), punched and kicked in the solar-plexus/diaphragm, punched in the face, palm-struck in the nose, kicked in the head, thrown on the ground, arm bars, wrist/ankle locks, head-butt, and what I just discovered kneed in the top of the skull. Hell I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them farted on me and I just didn’t know it.

Yesterday however was one of the more brutal days someone actually got a TKO on me, a ‘Technical Knock Out’. Unlike decking someone out cold a technical knock out is more or less beating them up to the point where they can no longer fight. Fortunately we use lots of padding. Foot, shin, fist and forearm guards, a helmet, and mouth piece; I kept getting hit hard everywhere by just about everyone. That night I was slugged in the all sides of my head many times, even had my helmet knocked off me, kicked in the torso many times, one Jujitsu guy I call the human spider monkey because he looks like one gave me a pleasant knee to the side of my thigh that went all the way down to my femur bone. And on top of that while trying to grapple him and take him down I got stuck under him in a bad place and he threw a wonderful solid knee straight to the top of my skull.

That took me out of commission. I was sitting there a bit dazed, I had was just gathering my thoughts and was completely calm, you probably would have thought I was meditating at that point but OH MAN did that hurt. Well not as bad as getting kneed in the femur but my brain isn’t in my thigh. Crap that sucked, anyone who gets kneed in the skull will tell you that sucks there is no way around it. I actually spent the next 15 to 30 minutes trying not to break down emotionally because of it. Which is the annoying part! It surprised me, jarred my head and threw me for a loop but I’ve been hit harder in worst places but for some reason this event caused me wanted to just breakdown and cry for no obvious reason and it bugged the hell out of me the entire time.
At one point I was actually just trying to force out any of those emotions because they wanted to come out and I wanted them out of the way but they refused. Go figure.

But you know what? Yesterday was an awesome day, and today as I type this while I don’t have a headache or sore neck, I do however walk with a REALLY bad limp from that shot to the femur and oh boy does it hurt. I feel like some LA driver caught me with the corner of their bumper and sped away.

And you know what? Today is an AWESOME DAY? Why? I DON’T KNOW! Because I said so that’s why! There is no reason at all for today to suck and no day is going to be perfect. Many people walk with limps every day of their life for various reasons, I’m sure people with arthritis hurt more than I do right now. Hell I’m glad to have two arms and legs because of people like Nick Vujicic (Voi-chich). Aside from my leg there is nothing special about today over any others, I was even surprised by a random $35 fee by my apartment complex which I have to sort out. I have no job, and unaccomplished for the most part, and I’m transgender… Theoretically life should suck!

But it doesn’t.

Life does not suck. It’s wonderful, as perfect as it needs to be, the very existence of a new day is a day worth living for better or worst. If a day wasn’t worth living try not being alive for one day. Good luck let me know how that goes. The closest you’re going to get is sleeping for 24 hours and you’re going to wake up feeling like crap for sure. The most I’ve ever slept is 15 hours.

Today is just an average day just like any other. If a day was what I made of it, by default a day is just a day and nothing more or less everybody in the planet on this day are having the best day ever, AND the worst day ever… But it’s the exact same day, just two different people. So it’s not the weather’s fault, the date (Friday 13th, 9/11, 12/7, 8/6, 8/9), mood, comfort, etc…. It comes down to you. Only you have 100% control over yourself and as a result you control whether or not you will have a good day. The more you force good days in your life the more abundant they become. At first they might not happen much at all. It might take months, it took me a year until it became a constant habit to have a good day every day.

But once you’re there in that frame of mine aside from the occasional emotional reaction you might have randomly things by default are automatically good. You might cry for no apparent reason for 10 minutes, get a drink of water, and be perfectly fine as if it never even happen. This isn’t the psychotic Joker from Batman happy, this is the real deal, if something happens like your best friend dies of course you’re going to be sad, you’ll probably be miserable for weeks on end but as you regain composure the habit you have created of being positive every day will start to look at you life in a different prospective an compensate for the situation your in to help you keep living your life happily as friends always want each other being happy even after death.

Give it a try. Be silly about it. Have fun with it. Let loose and just start throwing your brain for loops taking the most god awful days, crack a huge smile, look at something you like, and say with all your heart in a dominant tone of voice ‘Today is a fabulous wonderful day and I LOVE IT!’
Tip: Listen to Zig Ziglar’s tape “How to be a Winner” at least 5 times.
And learn from it and apply it to your life. J




Additional Note
I feel it is note worthy to go into further detail by saying that I got injured closer to 8:30pm Monday Night, Tuesday I wrote this article, Wednesday I was walking with a obvious limp as you would expect from Dr. House, and later that day on Weds day I started feeling sick and was sick all the way until Tuesday of the fallowing week.
And I must say despite a injured left leg, obvious limp, hurt femur bone, and blowing my nose and coughing all week I must say that it was a very good week for me I really enjoyed it.
Call me crazy, a friend of mine did, but to put it into simplicity a day is nothing more or less by default, your choice to believe it is a good day or not is what defines it as a good day. Yes there are such things as emotional down times due to hormonal or emotional circumstances beyond your control, but for everyday experiences and life, what defines a good day from a bad day is you. If you have some unrealistic expectation of what needs to happen to make a day good you better lower your standards and appreciate the finer things in life. I actually appreciated my limp, I felt really cool walking around with a limp, I've never had one before, not for more than 20 minutes anyways let alone 3 days.