Life as a Practice

Weekly wisdom to level up your creative life in 3 minutes, for free.

A SHORT STORY

This past semester at NYU, I have been teaching the oldest martial art in the world as a vehicle for artistic practice and innovation.

As part of the curriculum, I interviewed my master teacher from India, who comes from a long lineage within this ancient tradition. When I asked him what one thing he wanted my students to understand about practicing this martial art, his answer was simple but profound:

“I study these old things for good survival in this world.”

"Life is a practice, like a martial art. So, when you begin your day, take a deep breath and think you are in a holy, spiritual place—to improve, to become a complete human. All positive things first. Then, practice."

So much of life orients us toward things that don’t truly matter - the shinier object, the need to win, the endless competition. We are trained to chase, to conquer, to accumulate. But ancient traditions suggest another way: to approach life as a discipline, a daily practice of refinement, attention, and care.

It makes me wonder—what would change if we treated each day as an art and each interaction like a movement to be perfected?

Maybe happiness isn’t something we find, but something we practice.

What would your life feel like if you approached it as a practice rather than a pursuit?

A POEM

“Love After Love” by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Grateful,

Michael