Yuri's Life as Art EN

I don’t remember exactly when it was. Probably before I began my elementary school education.

I have a brother, who is 1 year older than I. One day, my brother and I saw our father shave his beard and began to want to shave ours. So we told our father, “We want to shave.”

Our father said “OK” probably without hesitation and let my brother and me use his razors. My brother and I had our father’s shaving foam on our faces and just shaved our faces with the razors without thinking.  

My delightful childhood memory ends here. However, I noticed something recently. This cannot be exactly true. Now that I am a grown adult, I know. Adults should not just casually give little children razors and those who have not begun elementary school education cannot use razors properly. If my memory is actually true, my brother and I should have hurted ourselves in one way or another. 

So what was the truth?

I have not confirmed with my father and it is possible that he does not clearly remember. However, I can guess what actually happened.

My father passed me and my brother the razors after taking the blades away. In other words, the razors were only their bases for blades and the handles. My brother and I did not understand the mechanism of shaving at that time. So we believed that the act of removing the shaving foam with the black T-shaped object was something called “shaving.” We did not know that there were no blades. We just removed the shaving foam with only the bases and handles that still kept the T-shape and proudly “shaved.”

I used to think about the conditions to quit like,  “I will quit my job when this and/or that happens,” or “I will quit when that person quits,” when I started to think about resignation. 

As this or that happens and as that person quits, I save points on my reward card of despair.

Looking back, none of  those points were the decisive blow to quit. In other words, I have never quit my job with only one point, though the points increased.

It was like filling my psychological cup with unpleasant muddy liquid as I got one point until I decided to quit. 

And recently I got the desire to leave the job. I began to gather the points constantly and add the conditions. My points in the reward card kept increasing.

I realized one thing.

“Oh? Am I waiting for the day I lose all hope?”

With this logic, I can’t quit without points of despair and letting my despair overflow my psychological cup. I don’t want to despair, but I can’t resign if I don’t. So I long  for the day I despair.

But recently I got a new way of thinking. The reard card for despair is a rule that I made, not something others forced me. I can keep collecting points if I want, but I do not have to wait until my cup overflows. Rather, it is better to decide to abolish the rule of the reward card and start striding forward, looking forward to my life after my resignation. 

I began job hunting. This time, many things are different from the past huntings. So it may take time. Recruit agents told me many times, “Your wishes may be hard to be fulfilled.” But I grew. I can take such comments, thinking “Well that sounds about right.”

One thing I am baffled with is that I kind of miss my current workplace. Maybe I am bonded to it or just got used to it.

My current workplace pays well. I get along with my boss. I get along with most of the colleagues. It is just that a great many points came on the reward card seddenly, though I did not plan to save points.

I do not say I do not hesitate at all because both my salary and my boss are good. I imagine it decreases my hesitation to add more points to the reward card. Nonetheless I think it will be harder if I wait for the day when my card gets full points  because my heart will be filled with despair by then and that makes job hunting harder.

Recently I talked with my friend T about marriage. 

T has been married for about 7 years. I have never met her husband, but their relationship sounds like a really good friendship and I always think their life sounds fun.

On the other hand, I am not married. As I get older, the responsibility that comes with marriage and family, the hardness of the marriage system, that makes it very difficult to get out of,and  the statistics that say married women’s lives get shorter and married men get to live longer are making  it almost impossible to find positive aspects of marriage.

However, T’s stories give me the impression that she is enjoying her life in  her own way and therefore I do not receive negative impression about marriage from her.

The other day, T and I talked about marriage based on the concept of cyber security.

T’s job is related to security and I used to work in the similar field and that’s why our conversation took that form. Marriage through the eye of security was quite interesting.

I said  to T, “I do not particularly want to marry, but since a married couple can support each other financially especially when one of the two becomes unable to work, I think it sounds like a good thing.”

So T said, “Well. So you point out availability as a pro for a marriage.”

Availability here means to avoid an unavailable process of information by using another system when a system cannot work properly.

Let me explain in a very simple way. For example, in a company, data is used in many places through servers. If there is only one server, it is possible that the company’s business stops when the one and only server get attacked or when the server cannot properly function. In order to prevent such an incident, companies have multiple servers as backup. With such precaution, even if Server A becomes unavailable,the business will not stop because Server B or  is available and companies can keep making profits. Such state can be described as “The company’s servers ensure availability.”

“I’ve never used the word, ‘availability,” but it sounds about right,” said I. 

Then T’s eyes widened. “But it is not necessarily the case. Vulnerability can be bigger due to marriage.”

Her explanation goes like this. If we see a marriage like building a network by connecting two servers, each server is already connected to other servers called family and family itself is a network. So marriage is connecting two servers that belong to different networks.

Let me add a little bit of explanation. If we stick to T’s theory, the ideal marriage is robust and secure connection of the servers without vulnerabilities.

However, according to T, servers in networks called family have vulnerability anyway. Thus it can be said that connecting networks called family consisting of servers with vulnerabilities is a marriage.

I short, T thinks that marriage is not about availability, but about connection and expansion of networks with vulnerabilities.

She also said, “Marriage could not only bring availability in a marriage, but also vulnerabilities. So that marriage is a good thing is just a one-sided view.”

Since I had understood marriage as a matter of availability, I had believed that a single person had to be a robust server. However, if a marriage is an act of building a network including vulnerability, being a single person means not expanding a vulnerability.

But in reality, neither marriage nor family is a server or network. They are about real people. That's why there are essences, richness and interestingness, that do not appear in the discussion of cuber security. 

I have been feeling sick. I just feel tired without a fever and coughing. Sometimes I feel nauseated.  My blood is not flowing well and my shoulders are stiff and I get headaches. By the way I am tested negative for COVID. 

I really had no idea. So I went to a clinic. The doctor could not conclude the cause of my condition and therefore could not prescribe medicines.

So I took a blood test. The doctor took the blood from my arm, which is often adored by doctors and nurses since they can easily locate veins. I waited for the result for a few days.

The test result indicated that I did not have obviously severe problems. However, there were a few kinds of numbers that were slightly higher than acceptable range. So the doctor prescribed medicines that would improve the numbers.

I went to a pharmacy with the prescription. The schedule to take the medicines is as below:

1 medicine: twice a day after meal

2 medicines: three times a day after meal

1 medicine: three times a day between meals

“Wait, isn’t the schedule too complicated? Isn’t it too hard to remember the schedule? Because it sounds hard enough for me, a person around 30 years old, this should be out of the question for older people.”

Such comments bursted inside me and I laughed so hard inside my heart.

To the pharmacist, I said laughing, “I mean no offense, but isn’t it too hard to follow the instructions?”

“You will be taking medicines all day, sorry.” said the pharmacist,

It is no one’s fault, but I saw an unoptimised side of medical services.

Then I talked about this incident to my close colleagues at my workplace as “The highlight of the weekend.” I thought this was pretty funny.

One colleague mentioned his little children.

One of his children apparently loves the very sweet medicine like syrup for children. He says, “Dad, I want medicine” after meals.

“My son understands medicine as dessert,” he said.

That reminded me of something.

My first medicine in my life was also an overly sweet thing like juice and syrup. I remember drinking it with a big spoon.

Then my medicines became the intermediate class powder medicine and as a child I felt sadness like a sense of loss like “I am not a child anymore.”

When I got used to the powder medicines, the unfairness of the world got even worse. The doctors began to prescribe tablet pills, implying “You can surely take the tablets, right?” to a vulnerable child, who was me.

When I was a little kid, I was really afraid of taking tablets. Especially the fear that the big capsules provoked was beyond description.

Another colleague had had the same feeling and said “Tablets were really scary,” revisiting his fearful memory back from his childhood.

Now I take rather large-sized supplements without hesitation, but people including me have been formed as adults regardless of the readiness and put on “the conveyor belt of “the size of medicines” automatically, arbitrarily, for the sake of adults.

I am not sure if I should feel sad for such unfairness of the world, for the scariness of “automation”, and for myself, who started to say “Doping is business person’s taste” as half joke and half serious advice, taking several supplement tablets every morning after finishing up the planned course of the conveyor belt, or I should be happy with my “growth.”

I wonder what I, who received the first powder medicine in life and I, who felt fear when I received the first tablets, would think about me today. Am I “Yuri, who became an adult” or just “a traitor” to get yelled at?

I have a great colleague. She is smiling all the time while working. No matter how many days she works overtime, she works without complaints. Even if something urgent happens, she says only two things; “Yes, I will.” and “That’s alright.”  

She never says “I don’t think I can do it,” or “ This is unfair,” and she probably does not think in such a way. She always says, “People here are always nice.”

I thought often, “Why can’t I be cool with many things like her?” “Am I just weak?” In short, I was accusing myself because I hated myself for working overtime, for being unable to finish things without overtime work, and for feeling fear for mental breakdown caused by overwork.

One day I asked her, “Why are you always so calm and accepting?”

She answered, “I once delivered a child in a European country, where people did not speak English. When the baby was about to come out, the doctor and two nurses left me in the room in order to get coffee. But I had no choice, but to push the baby out.”

After hearing that, finally I could conclude that it was not my fault that I do not have hard experiences like her.　It is just that she is great and she went through such ultimate situations. It is understandable that she does not easily panic after such experiences.

At the same time, I  realized that I was condemning myself for not having calmness like her and for not being like her, even though I was fine that she was different from me and I could accept that.

The first “foreign country” I visited in my life was somehow Spain when I was in the second grade in elementary school.

After a long journey that took ten and several hours, my family and I got on a taxi from the airport.

My father is an experienced traveler, who learns the local language prior to his travel for several months and makes sure that he can speak and listen sufficiently as a traveler. 

So in the taxi, he could communicate well with the taxi driver and could direct where we were headed.

Then my father said to his family members, “Now this driver recommends us to keep going with this taxi without changing transportation until we arrive at the hotel since it will be cheap and easy. What do you think?”

My sister was not fond of cars, since she easily got sick on a car. So she said she did not like the idea.

However, my father’s Spanish for travelers was not sufficient to express that his daughter easily got sick in a car and therefore we needed to get off the taxi at some point.  

My sister was beginning to learn English or maybe right before her formal English education. So what she could say was something like, “Ummm, car…blech?” And the driver could not understand what she was trying to say.

What the driver could understand was that we, the family, were trying to say something, and he had no idea what we were trying to say.

I was looking at the communication among these “older people.” And I got an idea. I just could imic vomiting.

At that time, the most popular play between my brother and me was to mimic vomiting in a seriously realistic way. So we had been very busy polishing our techniques around it everyday.

Then I made the sound, “Blech” as realistically as possible from the backseat.  

The taxi driver exclaimed, saying “Ah huh!” He offered his hand to me and we shook our hands.

When I was a college student, I took an English summer course in Canada. 

The school I went had many Japanese and Taiwanese, and some Korean, and some from East and West Europe.

At that time Japan saw the first popularization of Korean culture, according to my vague memory. However, I knew only the names of Bae Yong-joon and Choi Ji-woo and had never watched Korean dramas yet. Rather, I knew Korean food better.

In my class, there was a Korean girl. She knew the word “otaku'' and even called herself so, by saying “I am otaku.” I think she loved Japanese animations and manga, and if my memory is right, she knew much more about anime and manga than I, who saw the anime and Ghibli works of my generation, but did not follow manga and anime properly.

One day in a break time. The Korean student, my friend M from my university and I were having a chat. She said, “I know something about Japan '' and wrote Toyotomi Hideyoshi with Chinese Characters on a white board in the lounge. M and I looked at each other. As you may know, Toyotomi Hideyoshi is a historical warrior who went over to Korea for an expedition and therefore he is THE JAPANESE BAD GUY in Korea.

M and I took world history tests when we took university entrance examinations. So we know what to write to reply. We said, nodding, “Now we write Yi Sun-sin.”

Yi Sun-sin is a Korean hero, who protected Korea from Toyotomi Hideyoshi. 

With a pen in my hand, I pulled the pieces of my memory to write Yi Sun-sin with Chinese characters. M and I discussed, saying things like “Yi Sun-sin, Yi Sun-sin… What are the Chinese characters? Yi should be ri, Sun should be ‘moment’? Sin should be omi?” And in the end we could write his name.

Then  “Wow” came out from the girl, M and me. We were looking at each other and complemented our understanding of shared history from different points of view. We got somewhat special kind of friendship.

She was interested in Japanese culture. I began to be interested in Korea around that time. Fortunately, the winds of anti Japan and anti Korea had not got in my eyesight yet then. So even though M and I got taken back by the incident, we three could deepen the understanding of each other like “Well, we know about each other” because we knew what we needed to know about our histories with Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Yi Sun-sin. 

I sincerely thanked the fact that I studied world history in high school and studied it hard for the entrance examinations for universities.

I went to a bakery store the other day. While I was thinking what to buy, a small boy about three years old and his father came in. The boy was chatty and the father talked with the son a lot as well. The boy held a tray and it seemed that he chose what to buy.

Since I decided what to buy, I joined the queue. There was one customer at the cashier and I was the second person in line.

While I was waiting in front of a shelf filled with sandwiches, the boy came close to me. I walked a bit away from him, thinking he might want to see sandwiches. Then the father said, “You surely get in the line” to his son. “Dad, the young lady got out of the waiting line for me,” said the boy.

I said to the boy in my head, “No, I am still in line.” I thought, “Little kids believe that they are at the center of the world and things move around them.” 

But I talked to myself in my head, “Wait. Am I ‘a young older lady’ given that I am over thirty? Am I (sessha) socially a young lady? Should I (sessha) feel happy about it? Is it appropriate that I feel happy because a boy referred to me as a young lady? I am a feminist.”

Then I remembered how I was when I was as old as the boy.

A three-year-old child is a super star everywhere. I, too, was so. 

On trains and streets, young beautiful ladies smiled at me, said hi to me, and waved at me.

However, I wondered, “Did all these women call themselves ‘sessha’ in their heads?”

If their first person was “sessha,” were they so-called “young older ladies”?

Now I imagine that the women in my childhood should have worked  in harder environments because of the absence of feminism in major Japanese societies. It is possible that their language inside their heads were worse or more violent than mine.

It is also possible that they had hardcore “my world” that I cannot even imagine, even though Otaku culture was not a thing at that time.

I thought “beautiful young women” in my head were not trustworthy. Those women who could have called themselves as “sessha” were not only “young beautiful ladies,” but also hard-boiled warriors that encouraged and cheered themselves up by calling themselves “ore” or “sessha.”

I made an oath to myself that I would keep calling myself “sessha.”

One day I heard a story from my friend.

One of her acquaintances got married to an American man. I forgot the details but first the husband started an affair and later the wife started an affair.

 He used to have a stable job, but he retired, saying, “I want to support my life by being a YouTuber.”  His family was like “If you have a dream why not follow it?”  so his family did not really oppose him.

 I forgot what the wife's job was. But she has her own job.  They used to live in the u.s. but now they moved in with the wife's family which is rich.

I thought the situation of the couple was not sorted out.  And my friend told me that they have no children. So as an outsider I thought it would be easier for both to get divorce and restart their own lives. separation might work better for both for their career as well. so I said to my friend  "It sounds like they can be happy if they divorce. But I guess that's not how things work.”   my friend said " So the what cannot  walk away from him. or to be precise she's afraid of being single again.”

This time it is about divorce, but I think it happens often that one cannot easily decide what to do for bitter because he or she is afraid of change.

Maybe it is like an arrow stabbing one's arm. 

In the long term, the arrow in the arm should be pulled out and the arm needs to be treated as soon as possible so that the person can enjoy his/her life with the recovered arm. However, pulling out the arm should be painful especially when it is being pulled out. Some flesh could be pulled and get torn while the arrow is being pulled out. Pain is scary. I can understand those who think, “Well, let’s leave it there for now since I don’t wanna see the arrow with my flesh and blood.”

It is also possible that one grows to be fond of the arrow if it has been there for a long time. If the arrow suddenly disappears from the place where it used to be, the entire scenery changes. That is also scary.

Actually the arrow in the arm brings us some advantages.  For example if we have no arrows in the arm, probably there would be something  we should do, something we are responsible for. With the arrow in the arm we can say “Look! There is an arrow in my arm. Surely you wouldn't want me to do something responsible, would you? It’s painful. Can’t you see that?I can’t do it because I have pain here” to those around us. Above all, in such case, we can easily tell ourselves, “There is an arrow in the arm. So I don't have to push myself or challenge hard.”

In addition, when the arrow is out of the arm, a future without the arrow is waiting for us. Due to the absence of the arrow, the person will need rehabilitation. The rehabilitation will be troublesome and the person has to go through the rehabilitation everyday, tolerating the frustration with the arm. Well as long as the arrow stays in the arm the person can avoid the unwanted internal struggle like mentioned before and have good reasons to avoid them. I can tell you that I sometimes take advantage of such logic.

So I can understand those people and those thoughts  to procrastinate things, including divorce, that they should do especially given the long-term. However, I do not mean to say   "Procrastination is a bad idea. Stop it." 

Probably the procrastination means that the pain brought by the arrow is not bad enough to motivate him/her to take it out. Or it means "it is better to tolerate the everyday pain than to take the arrow out right now. " In that case I think the person can wait until he or she really wants to take it out. The determination to do something does not just show up when one thinks, “Let's do it.” Every person needs a certain time, process and path to reach the necessary state of mind only for him/herself.

There is one thing I noticed in the past a few years. I think  I tend to choose to be unhappy. By "to choose to be unhappy," I do not mean “I choose to place myself in a context where I will surely feel hurt."  What I want to talk about today is " to choose the interpretation that will make oneself unhappy even though one can choose how to interpret the situation."

The easiest example of this is the situation where one thinks, “ I'm not good at this job” when one leaves the office after overwork.

Now I am working at an office where many colleagues leave the office  without working overtime. Even if they work overtime that will be just 30 minutes or so. Some people leave the office  at the exactly same time everyday and some leave the office more or less the same time everyday but sometimes over work for 1 hour.  Well, today I'm not going to talk about the ambivalent feeling I have towards those people who leave early everyday this time.

 I'm one of  the latter people.  For my defense, it hasn't been one year since I joined my current company. And I am pretty new to this industry. So I haven't come to the phase where I create my own pace yet, I think.

I know that when I work overtime for more than 1 hour at a place where not many people overworked more than 1 hour, I start to wonder, “Am I working overtime because I'm not good at this?” But when I leave early without working overtime, I start to think, “Am I not trying hard?” And then I attempt to carry something like this mysterious guilt. In either case my conclusion  tends to be “It's my fault.”

Since I got this job, no one has told me that I'm slow or I'm not trying hard enough. Well, the fact that no one has told me doesn't necessarily mean that no one thinks so. However, at least for now, the possibility that I am slow and that I'm not trying hard enough is only in my head. Since no one has said anything, I do not have to do something about it. Well no one has to do something because someone said something, though.

In any case, the only person who believes that something is wrong with me when I leave the office early is only me. Other people do not care why I leave early. Since it is only about how I interpret the situation in my head, it is actually up to me to choose to believe that I leave office early because I'm good at the job or I leave the office early because I'm not trying hard. I do not have to take the latter choice voluntarily. 

It is the same for working overtime. It's up to me to choose to believe that I'm working overtime because I'm not good at it or I'm working overtime because I just have to get certain things done today.

Moreover, it is also up to me to choose to engage in misery and happiness voluntarily by contrasting myself with those who leave the office early somehow or just think, “Well that person leaves early but it's not my business” and stop dwelling on the sad feeling and let It go.

Well I can conclude here, saying “Well this is because I'm the kind of person who chooses to be unhappy,” but that is sad. So I will write a little bit more.

So I think,  if I choose to be unhappy, I can also choose to be happy. Since I automatically arrive at a conclusion that brings me sadness, I just need to think about the opposite. And I can praise myself for taking that one step.

One time my favorite author Martha Beck introduced someone's words or thoughts in her  YouTube program. Well I cannot remember exactly who that was. It was something like this.

 "WHen negative phrases occur in your mind, the opposite is the truth.”

So when one feels down or sad, it is easy to come up with phrases like “I'm not good at this job” “I am so and so.” So when that happens I think it is a good idea to say the exact opposite of whatever comes up in your mind.

When you think “I cannot do this,” you can say “I can do this.” If  such a phrase sounds too fake, you can maybe say “I can do something about this” “I can manage this” “Maybe I can not do this well  today, but I'm on the path to be able to do this well.”

However this kind of thing is not something you can do suddenly. Every time you feel sad, it is very important to just say “oh I feel sad I'm feeling negative therefore the opposite is the truth” and “I'm great because I am aware of the truth.”

I like Elizabeth Gilbert. I have only read her Eat, Pray, Love, but I see her speech videos and interview videos often these days.

I like her way of thinking, especially when she personifies feelings and emotions.

I remember that she personified fear, love, creativity (or maybe inspiration?) and talked about them humorously.

For example, fear. I think Ms. Gilbert said something like “Fear is important. We avoid those dangerous looking streets because of fear. That’s why I am alive today”. And I think she said something like “We should thank fear”. Another thing I remember is that she said something like “When Fear appears, I say to Fear, ‘You can sit there’”. Also, something like “Fear can sit in my car, but it cannot drive my car. I steer the car. We can just let Fear sit in the backseat.”

She also said that she has a dialog with Love. Love, that begins with the capital L. When she feels nervous, she has the conversation by writing down things in her journal. For instance, she says, “Hey Love. I have anxiety. What should I do? I do not feel OK at all”. Love will say to her, “Alright. You have anxiety. But it’s OK. I am always with you. I will never leave you alone”. Ms. Gilbert would say, “What should I do?” Love will answer, “I can’t answer that question. But you will be OK because I am with you”. By having such conversations, Ms. Gilbert can calm herself down.

About creativity, she said something like “Creativity will say to me, ‘Let’s drive to the cliff over there” It is going to be fun!’ So I will do it. I drive to the cliff and fall down. The car crashes and I get injured. So I will say to Creativity, ‘Why did this happen? Didn’t you say that we could land safely?’ Creativity says, ‘What? Did I say such a thing? Well, let’s drive to the cliff again!’ Creativity will not assure success. However, we can drive with Creativity again after our injuries got healed ‘”.

So I began to have a conversation with my feelings.

Anxiety:Oh my god. My heart is beating fast.

Me: Oh, alright. Your heart is beating fast. Why don’t we take a deep breath?

Anxiety: OK. Now I feel a bit better.

Me: Feeling better? That’s good.

Anxiety: What if I feel the same again?

Me: If that happens, you can take a deep breath with me again. So you do not need to worry about it now.

Anxiety: Well I haven’t done anything today.

Me: Well, there is plenty of time today.

Anxiety: But I haven’t done anything for 2 hours.

Me: It’s great that you could relax for two hours. We still have time. Let’s take a deep breath again together.

Like that.

This worked more than I expected.

When I talk with my feelings as if they were my friends, the words to censure me do not come out. I can be the feelings’ side boundlessly. When I treat my feelings like that, my feelings can calm down. Then I can move forward.

Ms. S was working as a temporary staff member at my former workplace.

Ms.S was a cheerful, always smiling person with five children.

One day, she said, “ I wanna divorce my husband.”

Since she said such a thing so openly and lightly, I thought she was a refreshing person.

I do not remember how long she worked there, but she finally decided to leave the workplace to work at a new place close to her house as a full-time worker.

I think I heard about her new career after her divorce had been settled. And our conversation took place in the ladies’ room.

Her divorce was settled. She got a new job. Her five children will join her household.

Her eldest child was still underage. She still needed to take care of her children, but she looked excited about her future.

Her divorce and new job came to her. Her ex-husband was to leave their house and she and her children would stay there. I vaguely thought that her life was heading toward a positive direction, even though I did not know about all the details about her situation.

On her last day at my former workplace, I sent my team an email saying “I am leaving soon” 　because I was leaving earlier on that day.

Ms.S’s boss read the email and talked to me with kindness, saying “Today is Ms.S’s last day. Talk to her before you leave.”

So I spoke to her and she was ready and smiling.

She said, “Yuri, I have had this thing I wanted to tell you. Many things happened after I became thirty years old. So you will never know what will happen.”

She did not mean to scare me. I guess she meant “Many fun things will happen to you from now on. So, look forward to them.”

So I asked her, “How old were you when you had your first child?”

She said, “Thirty-two.”

Since then, she got five children and was still raising them. She transformed from a temporary worker to a full time worker. Well, no one knows what is going to happen. I could see that she was excited.

This is something I said to her in the ladies’ room when she had told me about her career decision, but I said the same thing to her.

“You should buy a package of lottery tickets.”

Since many things were going forward in her life, I thought that good things would happen to her.

Now. I found this writing about Ms.S, which I wrote a few years ago and am preparing to upload on my blog.

I have been wondering about my life.

What will I do? What do I want to do? How can I be happy? Well, if I am happy now, isn’t my happy now bringing an appropriate future? But what do I want to do now?

Sometimes I think, “Well, I will figure it out at some point.” Sometimes I fall in a labyrinth.

When I am in the labyrinth, I will remember,

“Yuri, I have had this thing I wanted to tell you. Many things happened after I became thirty years old. So you will never know what will happen.”

Today I am writing about Nori.

I met Nori only twice.

I think I met her 5 years ago at a store that sold accessories and clothes in a local shopping building. She worked there.

At that time, I was ashamed of my life and was anxious about my life.

That was because I did not proceed with my academic career instead of my education in grad school and I engaged in a job that was not really related to my academic background. I did not think I was doing well with my job.

I don’t remember why exactly, but I visited my family home. I don’t remember if I stopped by at the shopping building on my way to my family home or on my way to my apartment.

When I went into the store, Nori talked to me. I think I was looking at a small shoulder bag resembling a gameboy.

Nori showed me how to coordinate the bag with clothes by wearing the bag, saying “Like this?” “Like this.”

I don't’ remember how our conversation progressed, but she said, “I am good at seeing what’s inside people. I know you are fine. I can easily see through those people who are in trouble.” Since I had anxiety often, her “I know you are fine” made me happy and calmed me down.

She continued, “If you don't have a lot of money, you can make rice balls and bring them to your workplace. If you do not have a lot of time, you can get up early. The time you can spend with your parents is limited. So if you want to be with them, you can be with them. I got married some years ago, but until then, I had lived with my parents. I married a bit late, but that’s ok.”

Some time later, I wanted see her again and went to the same store. She did not remember me, but I told her, “You talked about this and that and I came here to see you again.” We had a small conversation and I bought nothing on that day.

Recently I got contacted by my old friend. She is going to divorce.

She said she contacted me because she wanted to ask me something related to her decision. The conversation I had with her made me ponder.

I was surprised to hear her news. However, I felt relieved to see her. She was calm and excited for her future. I was simply happy that she seemed fine.

The first thing I said to her when she told me about her news was “You must be tired. I hope you will take some rest.” I do think that was sort of a defensive, weak-kneed, safe thing to say. Nonetheless I did not think showing my subjectively positive or negative reaction by saying “That’s great” or “That’s too bad” was not a considerate gesture for her.

I have never been married or divorced. Above all, I am not her. So I do not know the most appropriate words to say for her, but the best words I could think of at that moment was “You must be tired. I hope you will take some rest.”

Looking back, I think maybe I should have said “Congratulations!” Or I could choose to say “Congratulations!”

When I quit a company filled with power harassment and moral harassment, I visited the professors who had supported me when I was a student. I thought I could maybe figure out what I wanted to do or where I should go.

One of the professors said, “Congratulations!” as soon as he saw my face. Until then, I accused myself for being unable to tolerate the hard environment. However, the professor’s” word helped me realize, “Yes. Quitting a job is a good thing. I can do anything I want from now on.”

Marriage and divorce are very different from job, but maybe I could say “Congratulations!” Maybe I could affirm her decision 100 percent irresponsibly without knowing how she arrived at her life decision.

I have no regrets for saying “You must be tired. I hope you will take some rest.” That was my heartfelt words. Nevertheless I wonder what would have happened if I had said “Congratulations!“

When people work, hard things happen.

People react to such hard things in several ways.

One is to react to every suffering, become angry saying, “I HATE THIS!”, and challenge the situation to change.

Another is to accept the hard situation as it is, since the situation is unchangeable, even though suffering is still there. Some of those who deal with the situation in this manner observe and interpret the circumstance in a hilarious way in order to protect their heart. This is a smart and realistic way to handle stress in the long run with less anxiety.

I tended to work with the former mentality. It has been hard for me. So I envied those who live with the latter mentality.

I am the kind of person who thinks, “Well, I think it is fine as long as one does not harm other people” no matter how other people think about what. So I have never thought that the latter mentality is wrong, although I may sometimes/often envy those with such mentality.

But I must say that I could not allow myself to have the latter mentality because accepting suffering means surrendering myself to the unwelcomed circumstance. Everyone has the right to choose his/her way to live life. So it is fully acceptable that other people who are not me choose to live in such a way. Nonetheless I could not allow myself not to challenge the suffering and yield to the given situation.

Well, however, I learned something recently.

Not challenging the hard situation and surrendering to the hard situation mean accepting the situation. These are the same thing. The only difference is their flavors.

And accepting the hard situation is accepting oneself in the situation.

I can be easily scared.

When something is about to happen, the first thing that occurs to me is the worst prospect. I tend to think that people can attack me anytime and that they will say ill of me.

However, I learned something by reading.

We can have control over our inner conversation.

For example, now. I have just contacted a person due to job hunting. We are just exchanging necessary questions and answers

This time, I got contact from that person and our communication began. So I can safely say that the person has positive feelings and judgement about me.

I answered the person’s questions and I asked questions. The answers I got were clerical and mine were clerical, too. So I do not need to be afraid by imagining all these worst case scenarios even before I get the reply.

Thinking about all these, I remembered that I heard that having a conversation with oneself helps. Ok, let’s do it.

“What are you afraid of?”

“I am afraid that I might get verbally attacked. The person could say that I was rude or I said something strange.”

“Did you ask rude questions? Did you say anything strange?”

“No!”

“So you do not need to be afraid.”

”But some people make up reasons to attack others.”

“Is the person like that?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Then you don’t need to be afraid, do you? The person contacted you because of the interest in you. It is less likely that you get attacked. Rather, the reply you will get is more likely to be something helpful and exciting. So it will be just alright. You won’t be attacked. If something happens, you just need to deal with it then.”

“You are right.”

“Don’t worry. You will receive a fun reply.”

After going through all the conversation, my nervousness slithering deep in my heart went away.

While writing this does, I remembered something.

Rayya Elias said something like this.

“My head. I own you. Not the other way around.”

Elizabeth Gilbert said something like this about fear.

“I thank fear because we avoid danger and dangerous places due to fear and therefore we are here.”

“Fear exists, but it will not steer my car. I drive my car. My fear can sit in the back seat.”

Martha Beck said something like this.

“When we decide to do something, we often think, ‘Well, everyone will say it will fail. So I won’t.’ But who are ‘everyone’? Think concretely. Are they important people to you. I guess not. Probably they are harmful to you because the thought, ‘everyone will say it will fail. So I won't.’ works to protect oneself from danger.”

Seth Godin said something like this.

“We have an inner conversation. The loud voice says, ‘It is not my turn’, ‘I don’t know enough.’ When inner conversation takes place, there is talking one and listening one. Talking one focuses on numbers and compliance. Listening one is not good at verbalizing. However, this listening one has instincts and tries to make things better. When we listen to the listening one, our opportunities will burst.”

The word, self-actualization.

Do I like it or not?

I am not sure.

I can say that I like it. But honestly, that word chokes me.

I do not think I have not realized myself, I do not know if I ever will. I am not sure if I am on the path to self-actualization.

What about others? Maybe they have done self-actualization, or on the way to it, or do not care about self-actualization.

For me, self-actualization means being somebody in society.

Of course, that is my interpretation. self-actualization can mean running a bakery in the town, building a warm family, or working in a favorite cafe to be the manager.

That being said, self-actualization always means “being someone whom I am not now”.

So as soon as a person uses the word “self-actualization”, he or she supposes that “he or she lacks something now”.

Now is just a point in life. So at this moment right now, I guess it is a waste of time to be stressed out, thinking if I am doing self-actualization or I am on the way.

Essentially,I think that self-actualization means being happy. But I feel unhappy as soon as I start thinking about becoming happy.

After I became thirty years old, it is not that unusual to see younger successful people in the Olympics and on TV.

I have lived my life, making decent efforts. But is “decent” not that important? Is there no meaning unless one is more successful “than anyone else”? If so, is there no meaning that most of the people in this world exist?

I believe there is some meaning. However, if someone asks me, “So are you with the decent effort worth existing?”, I would just say “yes” with a whispering voice.

It is hard to live a life, where I have to prove my value. My belief that I have to achieve self-actualization is suffocating.

Is what I can do only to live my life decently, deal with pain and anger of the day by watching TV and youtube, comfort myself by telling myself “It is fine to be me like this”, and console myself? Can I allow myself to live in this way? Is this a life I can affirm?