Daily Yamabushi

The best is yet

Surrender yourself. Accept yourself. Give over yourself. Give in to yourself. But never give up on yourself. The best is always yet to come.

The answer is no.

Are you going to dwell on it? The answer is no. We don’t dwell on things. We get up, and we move on. Because that’s the only way forward. Sure it may rear its ugly head from time to time, but once we’ve decided to move on, we move on. We don’t dwell on it.

They will come.

Like a cat, the key is to get them to come to you. If you do the right things, they will come. It may just be a matter of repetition, a matter of iteration, or simply a matter of patience. But if you do the right things, they will come.

Don’t coerce. Entice.

How will you know what the mountains look like?

If you don’t go outside,

How will you know what the mountains look like?

How will you know what the flowers smell like?

How will you know what the air feels like?

How will you know what the rivers sound like?

How will you know what the trees feel like?

How will you appreciate the wonders of nature if you don’t go outside?

The next Japanese sensation?

Here’s another word to add to the growing list of Japanese concepts to take out of context but still keep it somewhat in context in English.

The word is ‘shisei’ 姿勢.

This is the word for your actual posture. When you want to remind someone that they need to keep their back straight and their shoulders back, shisei is the word you use. Shisei is also the word for your attitude, for how you approach things.

You could probably just translate shisei as stance, as this works for both physical and mental stance. However, I think there are some key differences between the English stance and attitude. Stance is static, you are just standing there. Attitude is very much about how you go about things. And when it comes to Shisei, attitude is all that matters.

That this word encompasses both your posture and your attitude is nothing short of a miracle. We know that if you’re feeling down, one way to get out of it is to make sure your posture is as good as it could be. Seemingly like magic, your physical posture helps fix your mental attitude, and Shisei goes a far way in reminding us of this.

So, there you have it. A word that encompasses two very important things, and just so happens to be Japanese as well.

We strike

The best time to start is yesterday. There is no better time than now. When the chance arises, you strike. Who knows what calamity may befall you when the stars align. Forget the stars aligning and get started.

The iron is hot. You know what to do.

Give it your best

Give it your best shot, give it your best chance, and leave everything else up to fate. Fate is going to come either way, but this way you’ve given it your best chance to succeed.

The question remains then, are you giving it your best? What would it take for you to do so?

And my reverse culture shock

President Trump copped a bit of flack for wearing a blue suit to Pope Francis’ funeral. This reminded me of some reverse culture shock I experienced at my own father’s funeral.

At my father’s funeral, I was very surprised when basically only myself and my wife were wearing black. It seems we were following Japanese custom, while everyone else was following what I suspect is NZ’s new progressive custom: wearing a whole lot of colour.

Which is great!

My judgement could be wrong here, but I felt that the onus was on celebrating the person’s life, not being saddened by the end of it.

However, since Trump is the president of the United States, he has some rules to follow when it comes to appropriate attire. You could argue that Trump too was trying to celebrate Pope Francis’ life rather than be saddened by his death, but who really knows with President Trump?

Well, can you?

We live in an age where not having something on feels like we might be missing out. As a result, we put things on either to focus our attention on, or in the background. We get so used to it that we put things on seemingly automatically.

This means we totally miss the chance for some silence, or some quiet meditation and time alone with our thoughts.

Barring those who use special earphones, swimming is its own form of silent meditation. Those who have done extensive swimming understand just how meditative it can be. And this is because we are all but forced to be alone with our thoughts.

But with a little self-control and discipline, we can easily expand this into other parts of our lives.

Do you really need that background noise? Could you live without it for the next little while?

Try it. You might be surprised with the results.

While in your way.

What if the only thing between you and success was a tiny bit of discipline?

You might be surprised.

Start.

Start when you’re ready. But when you’re ready, start.

If anything, automate the personal touch

Things shouldn’t be automated simply because they can. Sure you may be more productive, but at what expense? The expense of a personal touch.

With recent developments the temptation to simply leave things up to AI is very strong. When it comes to things that require a personal touch, however, the things that humans will be the deciding factor on whether something is worthy of our time, then a personal touch wins every time.

When in doubt, give the personal touch.

In what ways? Right question.

The way you ask questions determines the answer. Quite remarkably, in fact.

‘Is there a way?’ sounds completely different to ‘in what ways is it possible?’ The onus is on not whether it’s possible or not, but in which ways it’s possible. This changes your thinking from ‘if only’ to ‘how?’ A very productive way to go about things.

In the same vein, in general, yes/no questions should also be avoided. Think past the yes/no, and think towards possibilities and opportunities. Otherwise it’s not really worth thinking about in the first place.

Go hard or go home

If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing to the best of your ability. If you do things to the best of your ability, you take away the potential for regret simply because if you’ve left everything on the table, you’ve well and truly left things up to chance. That’s not on you anymore.

You get there by giving things your best shot. And if you’re going to do that, there’s no better way than shooting for the moon, or going for broke. Going for the home run.

Making the most of hard and easy things

Hard things can be made easier. You don’t always have to do hard things the hard way. Sometimes coming out all and swinging gets results. On the other hand, you can make easy things a little more challenging just for the sake of improving your own skills. This is similar to the beginners mindset, and is another way of coming into things with fresh eyes.

Like changing the past

Just like you can’t change the past, you can’t change the future either. However, you can go a decent way in making it so the future is somewhat what you want.

Set the dominos in motion that will change your future for the better, and do it now. Don’t project yourself too far in the future, and equally don’t ruminate on the past. put your focus on making the most of the now. That will change your future.

Do first.

Do first. Then think about whether it’s worth talking about. If you’ve done it right, it won’t be because people will already be talking about it. So, do first.

You’re still going

As long as you’re still at it, it doesn’t really matter how slow you go. Stopping is the big issue, you need all the motion you can get to sustain things when it gets tough, and stopping is the worst thing you can do. But if you can keep it together with connected forward motion, however slow you go, as long as you go, you’re good.

Get it out in the world

If you thought of it, it’s worth a try. Make it. Do it. Get it out in the world. There’s no point letting it fester in your mind. Things always turn out differently than you imagine, and there is always something that doesn’t go as planned. But getting to that stage in the first place is contingent on one thing: Make it. Do it. Get it out in the world.

Just get started

If you think about it, you’ve already lost. Let the actions take control, and then just go with the flow. Don’t let your thoughts cloud your actions, and just get started. The rest will take care of itself. Let it.

And makes a world of difference

I don’t feel like it. It’s not the right time of day. I haven’t had my coffee yet. There isn’t enough time to make it perfect.

But make it you did. And makes a world of difference.

See where it leads you

It’s not you who determines your decisions, it’s your decisions that determine you. Different doors open when you take a different route. Different decisions are required when you take another path. Take a different path for the sake of different decisions. You’ll be better for it.

Do it enough and you never have to do it again

Practice regularly enough and you never have to practice again. Your practice just becomes part of daily life. For many, doing the practice in and of itself is the aim. In which case it’s just a matter of doing it regularly enough.

The self-updating list to ignore

‘People to prove wrong’ is a list that grows itself. People add themselves to this list, seemingly daily at times. But all it is, is added fuel for the fire. All it is, is reason to do the thing in the way you always intended to.

But not because there are people to prove wrong. Because there is someone infinitely more important to prove right.

You tell yourself

Humans are able to collaborate precisely because of the stories we tell. Money has value because of the story we believe. Religion makes us act in certain ways because of the stories we tell. But there is one story that trumps all of these.

The story we tell ourselves.

The words we use when we talk to ourselves determine our reality. Are we going to let ourselves be taken advantage of by a few strong words? Or are we going to keep things moving in a positive direction? The story we tell ourselves will determine the outcome, still make sure it’s a good one.

(Can you tell I read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari?)

You don’t know what it’s like

I often imagine what it’s like up on the mountains before I actually go there. Every time I’m wrong.

Until you’re up on the mountain, you don’t know what it’s like. Thinking about what it could be like is an unnecessary exercise that could even be detrimental as you compare it to your expectations. Best to go in with zero expectations so you can experience it for what it is. Best not to think what the mountain is like until you’re actually up there.

Control what you can, forget the rest

Today I was on the final stretch of my swim when disaster struck: the third person entered our lane and promptly began swimming. Two people is fine, you can relatively easily overtake when there’s a whole half a lane free. Three people though? Much harder. Impossible, even.

So I essentially gave up then and there. I stopped trying to finish my set in the time limit as per normal, and instead focused on just getting the distance covered. Of course this meant I slowed down considerably, and I had to do a bit of waiting, but it meant I still got the satisfaction of completing the set.

Was I pissed off? You bet. Was I going to let it ruin my day? No chance.

Some things you can’t control in life. One thing you can always control is how you react to them.

So take the time to do the good things

Good things take time. Let them. There’s no need to rush the good things. There’s no need to get ahead of yourself. Make a point of enjoying the process, and let the process unfold by itself.

Good things take time. So take the time to do the good things.

Huge difference

Fear does not prevent death. It prevents life. –Naguib Mahfouz

There’s a difference between living, and alive.

Living is existing. It’s being. It’s going along with your day just because.

Alive is also existing, it’s also being, but it’s not going along with your day just because. Alive is making the most of your day. More than that, alive is living each moment to the fullest.

Because what else is there besides living?

All good things must come to an end

Lovers.

Haters.

Strangers.

Seasons.

Days.

Flowers.

Busses.

Trains.

Planes.

Happiness.

Sadness.

Emotions.

All come and go.