Episode 031 - Modern Day Samurai

The word “samurai” means “one who serves”.  It was a title given to the renowned warrior class of pre-modern Japan.  The elements that attract a lot of people (me included) to the ideals lived and practiced by the samurai are their fierce fighting style and strict sense of discipline.  The kind of discipline that made the samurai a very admired as well as feared culture was their dedication of focus to their minds as well as their bodies.  I have utilized a samurai proverb in my personal life for years.  It helps me to focus on the balance I must strike between my mind and body.  In fact, you hear it in the intro to my podcast every time you listen: “Civilize the mind, but make savage the body”.   Who are we as firefighters if not modern-day samurai?  But does that mean that once we've earned the right to wear the maltese cross on a T-shirt that we are inherently entitled to stop progressing or being conscious in our efforts to be better people?  The answer is a resounding ‘NO!”  We should be striving to earn that privilege every day! In today’s episode, I will talk about the importance of living by a code, I will go over the 8 virtues of Bushido (the code of the samurai) and how we can implement those things into our lives to become better firefighters and better people.