In November of 2013 I posted about a curse warriors must deal with.

Recently I have recognized another curse of modern life: The curse of honor.

A friend (okay, I will be fair and say "a friend through martial arts", so not really a close personal friend) has suffered heavily in the past year for his personal relationships. In pondering this I realized he was, indeed, cursed with honor.

We live in a society where the rules are more or less "whatever it takes to get what you want" AND "I DESERVE (whatever I want)" AND "it is only wrong if you get caught".

You see, we live in a society where honor has lost its meaning. Honor is not taught to our children at home or in our schools any more, there is no one individually or as a group to hold any of us up to a standard of honor, and there are essentially no consequences for a breach of honor.

In such a society it falls to the individual to develop their own sense of honor and I firmly believe training in a traditional martial art is one of the best places to do just that.

There is another edge to this sword though; martial arts schools which do not include personal development and traditional values (really only training gyms) most often produce nothing more than trained thugs and "streetfighters". This is one of my biggest problems with "MMA" gyms.

Now, do not get me wrong here because I am not saying every gym is like that. I have seen boxing trainers climb into the ring and dish out some hellacious punishment to students who damaged the honor or reputation of their gym. And you absolutely did not want to do something dishonorable around my High School gym coaches.

By now you are asking "how is this a curse though?". I am getting to that.

You see, lacking any knowledge to the contrary the mirror by which we humans judge those around us is our own self. So my friend being an honorable man continually judges others as being honorable and trustworthy. And our society being what it is, he keeps on being disappointed.

That is the curse of honor. And yes, I do wish you all be cursed with this.