Are you your own best friend?

I heard a story about a very old Aikido Master who was on a train with his wife. A very big and drunk man in Japan got on board and started terrorizing everyone on the train. The old Aikido Master just walked right up to the man and said, "What's wrong?"

The drunk man was so taken aback by the old Aikido Master that it broke his resolve and he began to cry and to tell his sad story to the old Aikido master and his wife. By the end of their journey the Aikido master and his wife had sort of temporarily or permanently adopted the unruly man.

For the old Aikido master realized something no one else on the train had. The drunk man wasn't really at war with everyone on the train. He was at war with himself. By asking the unruly drunk man what was wrong the man began to cry and stopped terrorizing everyone.

Now this story might not work for every person that is drunk and terrorizing people but the Aikido master was very wise. He knew himself and was his own best friend and knew this drunk man was at war with himself and seriously needed some help. So he helped this man to stop hurting himself by hurting everyone else. He disarmed the man without ever striking a physical blow. And he helped the man to start once again to become his own best friend.

Because only if you are your own best friend are you NOT a danger to yourself and everyone else.

I'm telling this story because when I was a survivalist in the early 1980s, even though I didn't believe in guns at the time, still I had non-perishable food in buried 50 gallon drums and was capable of surviving with my family at that time without any outside help, water, or electricity for at least 30 to 90 days without any help from anyone. However, what I was still learning was to be my own best friend. This is not something that one learns overnight. But if one gets to really know oneself then one also knows everyone else in a much deeper way. And if you are your own best friend then you are on your way to becoming everyone's best friend whether they understand it now or not. The fact that you are is what is important to life.

If you are your own best friend then you are much less prone to delusional or paranoid situations and one begins to find people like this more at age 30 and beyond. Having survived to about 30 and likely having faced your own death one or more times by then one becomes much more philosophical about the whole thing.

And then from about age 50 on one learns if they are still alive and kicking that "Panic" is death. Moving quickly can still be okay but to fully panic will likely cause death in people over about 50. So, remaining calm no matter what the situation tends to keep one alive after 50.