How strange it is in today’s world that victory at all costs is more important than one’s character. It seems as though the growing consensus of achievement in today’s culture is to cast the moral and ethical quality of one’s very being over the cliff in deference to lying, cheating, stealing, deceiving, misleading. The goal, apparently, is to win the temporal, ephemeral brass ring and forego one’s primal essence.
The reality, however, is that in doing so one loses twice-fold. The titles, trophies, lands, property, treasure chests of money and worldly trinkets one gains in the rush to “succeed” will all be left behind when one dies, but dies also is the purity of the energy of one’s eternal divine being. Such a devastating and foolish investment!
The philosophy of the Karate Institute of America is always to put character first, for without it all is lost in this world and beyond. Thus, character will always be, must always be, more important than victory.