VLOG—A Minute with Steven

My martial arts teacher is fond of telling us that if a student learns combat skills without developing a moral code, it’s like giving a gun to a baby.

What does that mean?

It means that fighting skills give you power – even lethal power. You could do great harm or even worse to somebody. This power must be managed responsibly. The martial artist must unleash this power only for good reasons: to protect oneself and those around him.

And even then, the goal is simply to remove the attacker’s will to fight. No more, no less.

If you think about it, money gives you tremendous power as well. You can do just about anything with it. You could certainly hurt yourself and others. Think of all the trust babies that sefl-destruct, or the people that ruin their lives with lottery winnings. All the crooked dealings by people who really should know better.

They should, but they don’t, because they have chosen to not follow a moral code to guide them in the use of the money.

This is why the “moral wealth” you accumulate, in terms of high standards of behavior, is even more important than the material wealth you accumulate.