“Stanley, see this? This is this. This ain’t something else. This is this. From now on, you’re on your own.”

As a young man, trying to find myself, I latched onto things from the past. It started with English music from the sixties. I became intensely proud of The Beatles, The Kinks and The Small Faces, proud that our dour little rain-soaked island could produce such wondrous soul music. At university, I became fascinated with American cinema of the seventies and eighties, among other things. One line in particular, quoted above, from the film Deer Hunter, really stuck with me.

On paper, it’s a pointless circular statement. This is this! This isn’t something else, this is this. The phrase rattled around my brain for years and years and years, decades even. Only now do I feel like I understand its meaning.

In this scene, De Niro is upset with his compatriot, who doesn’t take their hunting trips seriously. Mike, De Niro’s character, has a spare pair of boots, because he is well prepared. Stan, who did not bring any boots, asks to borrow Mike’s, and he refuses. With that choice, and that statement – this is this – he has perfectly illustrated that the world is an unfair place, and your feet will freeze off if you are unprepared. This phrase came back to haunt me so many times. Any time I fucked up. Any time I did not plan correctly and suffered as a consequence. Any time I found myself in a shit situation.

Coming up through the ranks in jiujitsu, I would get frustrated, usually because my image of myself did not match the reality of myself. I probably thought I was better than I was, a crime many of us are probably guilty of. If I lost at a tournament, I was upset. I had not accepted that this was this. I wanted this to be something else.

In training, if someone got the better of me, I would be frustrated. I would make excuses to myself. I was tired, he was stronger than me, anything other than accepting the reality, that this was this. Gradually, however, I began to realise that most of what happens to you is a direct result of your actions, or lack of them. Some is not, of course, but even if it is not, it is your responsibility. If you have lazy tendencies in your personality (like I do), then you will achieve the results of a lazy person. Why was I losing in jiujitsu? Why was he stronger? Why was I tired? He was stronger because he worked out more than me. I was tired because I made the decision to go to bed late. Almost every frustration could be traced back to a poor decision. Nothing was a mystery. And eventually, the phrase started to make real sense to me. This is this. This isn’t something else. I am responsible for it, and even if I am not, it has fallen in my lap, and I have to deal with it.

Now as a black belt, I continue to get mileage from this line from a film that is almost 50 years old. Sometimes (a lie – ‘fairly regularly’ is probably more accurate), a lower belt will tap me out. In fact, I’d say it happens every week. This used to frustrate me. Now, I think to myself, this is this. I wonder what happened. I can usually trace it back to a few things. I zigged when I should have zagged. I lost the underhook. I did not train enough. Or maybe I did stay up too late the night before. Or maybe this lower belt, at that moment in time, was better than me. So what? This is this. I could improve ‘this’. I could train more. I could sleep better, eat better. I could watch more instructionals. But I don’t. So this is this. I have a black belt. A purple belt tapped me. I don’t care. You can take this belt off my waist and put it around yours. This is still this, I will still turn up to the gym on Tuesday and Thursday nights and do the best I am capable of at that time.

To say I don’t care is not entirely accurate. I do care, but I just do slightly better at removing the pointless complaining and blaming of external factors from the equation, and just accept things for what they are at that time.

If you forget to bring a pair of cold weather boots in life, you only have yourself to blame.