Caffeine is a helluva drug.

I know for some people caffeine doesn’t seem to do much, they say they could have a coffee after dinner and still sleep like a rock.

For me, I have a real love-hate relationship with caffeine.

Like when you think about it the first time drinking coffee (without sugar) I don’t think anyone could say they enjoyed the taste.  I think most people get into it by either drinking it with sugar or starting on a mocha then progressively get themselves to a point of shotting espressos to try and get their fix.

My hate of coffee stems from the notion that I don’t like to have a reliance on anything, so if I’ve had coffee daily for a period of time (2 - 3 weeks) I’ll like to take some time off it to prove to myself I don’t need it.

And it’s true, I don’t (caffeine withdrawels aside), but then there will come a moment where after some time off I’ll have something caffeinated and BOOM it feels almost euphoric.

I feel the benefits of the focus / mental acuity and question why I ever stopped drinking coffee in the first place 😅

I suppose there’s a parallel here with experiences in life, that the first experience we have with something can almost be bitter, a little overwhelming and we’re not quite sure whether we like it.

Before you know it, we begin to enjoy it and question how we ever lived without it.

Then there comes a point where there might be some kind of set back or moment where we can’t do the thing we now have grown accustomed to enjoying and we feel miserable and miss it.

And if we are fortunate enough to do the things we enjoy again we feel a renewed joy from it.

I often think about the idea of progressive resistance / resilience when it comes to training martial arts and also in raising my kids.

Give someone too much resistance and they give up before they even start, don’t give them enough and they think that every win should come easily (and hence don’t develop any resilience)

The thing is - the boundary varies so greatly from individual to individual it’s almost impossible to apply a cookie cutter approach to this.

I’m curious where people think their passion or love of something comes from - is it something innate or is it something you’ve learnt?

When reflecting on some memories of my dad, I actually realised that my passion of martial arts most likely was gifted to me from him.

I have this memory from being fairly young (let’s say I was maybe 3 or 4) and my dad did this jump and spin (think of it like he spun a 360 as he did a tuck jump) and I saw his head nearly touch the roof of our house.

And I thought that my Dad was so amazing that I wanted to learn how to do that. From that and watching Hong Kong cinema I think that’s where little Johnny found a passion for martial arts.

I brought this memory up with my dad because at this age now I was questioning myself - is this just some vivid dream I had and have taken to be my memory? Or was my dad that awesome he did this amazing spinning jump and touched the roof with his head?

It’s so seared into my mind it’s hard to think it isn’t true. Unfortuanately, my dad at the time had just had a stroke so when I brought this up with him he just nodded and smiled to acknowledge it - I wasn’t quite sure if it was real and felt like a dreamy memory, or it was a dreamy memory that felt real?

I suppose from the height of a 3-4 year old kid looking up at your dad jumping and spinning he might not have hit the roof (but it from your perspective it really looked like it) but that memory is a gift for me and one that has eventually gotten me to where I am today. Did it even matter whether it was real or not anymore?

I suppose many people have such moments and memories that inspire them towards certain things and repels them from others, some positive like mine and others maybe not.

What memories influence your life? Are they ones you look back on fondly or are they ones you need to let go?