If you need some inspiration...

"Peaceful Warrior" is the movie you need to watch.

Now, about 7 hours ago, before I sat down to watch this movie, I felt like I had a great perspective on life. Looking back on it now, it was still a pretty solid perspective. But there was one problem in my thinking.

Anybody that knows me well knows that I love to enjoy life, as much as possible. Sometimes too much. But you live and you learn. Either way, I'm just not the kind of person that's always concerned about every little bad thing that might happen. I try to live the right way, and I take precaution, but I still like to take risks at the same time. You only live once... so you might as well enjoy it.

At the same time, I make it a rule never to have regrets. I feel like everything that's happened to me has happened for a reason, and without my experiences (both good and bad), I wouldn't be the person that I am today.

With that said, I do often find myself getting upset whenever I don't get what I want. Not to say that I'm spoiled, but when I aspire to a certain goal and don't reach it, it hurts me.

My bad, scratch that... it hurt me. Past tense.

That was before I watched this movie.

Don't get it twisted. "Peaceful Warrior" isn't your typical inspirational, feel-better-about-yourself movie. It might be the farthest thing from cliché that you'll find. But I'm not going to ruin the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it.

I will, however, write a few of the movie's quotes, and then you can probably understand the movie a little better.

• "A warrior is not about perfection, or victory, or invulnerability. He's about absolute vulnerability."
• "The journey is what brings us happiness... not the destination."
• "This moment is the only thing that matters."

So, in a few words, here's what I learned from the movie. Too often, I would get so caught up in perfection that I failed to fully appreciate the journey that I was taking. People would always say, "learn from your mistakes," but often times, anything less than perfect is seen as a mistake.

It's not. The only mistake is when you don't take advantage of each moment on the journey. Like that first quote says, a warrior is "about absolute vulnerability." No one's perfect, or invulnerable... we're all human. But when you learn to master yourself, and bring the best out of yourself at every moment, THAT is when you truly become a warrior.

It's extremely difficult to put this into words. It's really something that you have to meditate on for a while to understand. And on that note, I don't know if anyone (including myself) can fully understand this, no matter how long they meditate on it.

But watch the movie first. That will at least put you on the right track.