Doodle

 

What’s undone can’t always be done.
いつも取り返しがつくとは限らない。

 

My mother passed away seven years ago today, February 16th.

When I was a kid, I often disappointed her by my wrongdoings. I didn’t like her in my teens. She got hospitalized when I was nineteen. Soon after her whole body was paralyzed, and she couldn’t say a word since then — for almost twenty years. I completely lost an opportunity for apologizing her and fixing our relationship.

What’s done cannot be undone. And the opposite — what’s undone cannot be done — is sometimes true. If you want to restore the relationship with someone, you might want to do so while he or she is still alive and able to communicate with you. If you didn’t, you might have to live with regret for the rest of your life — like I do now.

The only consolation is that I’ve now learned how to be grateful to people around me. Probably this is the biggest life lesson my mother gave me.

 

 

Be an outlier.
変わり者になろう。

 

As long as we live, we better be an outlier than a follower.

When I worked for a company as an accountant — which is often considered as one of the least creative jobs — I was always looking for a new, innovative way of doing my tasks. My ex-bosses didn’t like my creativity; they always expected me to do things in a certain way. In other words, they wanted me to be like a machine — the thing they can easily handle with less maintenance.

Everything on this planet has a room for further improvement. Human history consists of continuous improvements in all areas. There is no need to feel envious of someone’s accomplishments — Each one of us has a chance to improve anything around us if we choose not to settle for status quo.

Being an outlier is the way to make our life more fulfilling, even though our names would not appear in the history books in the future.

 

 

Set your standard.
基準を定めよう。

 

Here’s my favorite quote from the movie “Gladiator”:

Maximus: Do you find it difficult to do your duty?

Cicero: Sometimes I do what I want to do. The rest of the time, I do what I have to.

If we turned around what Cicero said, it would be a completely different lifestyle: Sometimes we do what we have to do, and the rest of the time, we do what we want to.

Which one is your default?

 

 

Be busy growing.
成長することに忙しくしよう。

 

If you always worried that something is wrong with your life or business, you might have had too much time to think about it.

“The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.” – George Bernard Show

Of course we’ve got to prepare for the worst. But just worrying about something is not a preparation; It just drains your energy and makes you stuck. If you just worry about something quite often, it’s time to change your thoughts and behavior — by making you really busy.

The point is that, you have to make yourself busy. Don’t let someone else make you busy — it would allow others to control you as they want.

You choose what to do, and it has to be challenging enough to make you grow further. If you’re not sure what to do, choose something that can make your current situation better. Set a tight schedule. Challenge yourself in every aspect. Focus on improvement, not perfection. Repeat the challenge until you quit the bad habit of worrying too much.

 

 

The instability is the way.
不安定さこそが進む道。

 

Life has ups and downs. It’s inevitable.

How we live during “dark days” is as equally important as how we live during “bright days.” What we think, do, and accomplish will always be a driving force of our life, even when everything is against us.

If you think you hit rock bottom, you are lucky. When things are really bad, we are unable to know what the “rock bottom” is. But no matter where you are and how you perceive your life, remember that you are always on the way — the way to the life you want.

Don’t let the ups and downs lose sight of your goal. Even when it’s invisible, it’s always there.