Fortunes of Life
By Moshe Katz
CEO
Israeli Krav International

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April 4, 2017 Israel

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If you live long enough you will see many things. And if you actually pay attention you will learn many things. One of those lessons is that we all have our ups and downs and there is little we can do about it other than learn from it. The only school that matters is the School of Hard Knocks. We get knocked around and learn a thing or two.

My Uncle Seymour was a millionaire by the time he was 39, and then he lost it all, and then he died a wealthy man. The ups and downs of life, strikes and cutters.

What we learn is to play it safe and to take chances, yes, we do both. Everything with caution. Life is a gamble, no doubt about that. Taking action involves risk, not taking action also involves risk. Stay home, go out...you never know which is more dangerous or which will lead to something important.

With Krav Maga we learn to rely upon what works, but never to settle for "true and proven" methods. Even our best methods must be constantly evaluated. Strategies that worked well in World War One failed miserably in World War Two. Trees that stood a thousand years suddenly shall fall. We need to be careful and we need to constantly review and evaluate everything.

But we learn to rely and build on solid foundations. In California new religions emerge all the time but they are all nonsense, silly philosophies. Go back to wise old Solomon, there is nothing new under the son, we just need to learn to pay attention.

We learn from mistakes but we stay with our solid foundation, our cornerstone rock. We have deep roots and that allows healthy branches to grow. Some of those branches will become very strong but others will break with the first wind. We live and we learn.

As the fortunes of life change we learn what we can rely upon. As the rabbis say there is none as wise as a man with experience.

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Israel: A Nation of Warriors
lessons from history

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