Two Years Living in 日本: Flowing Into New Beginnings

It’s hard to comprehend just how much my life has changed since I graduated from university a little over two years ago. I remember writing one of my first posts on this Blog just a few days later, “Marking the end... of the BEGINNING”, its title still reads. I couldn’t have phrased it better. 

The past 24 months since taking that flight to Tokyo on the 31 of August of 2009, have allowed me to write many pages... and chapters in the story of my life. A script so spontaneous and extraordinarily unique,that I could have never predicted the variety and richness of the experiences that were in store for me on this side of the world. A few of the highlights range from climbing to the summit of Mt. Fuji and the Japanese Alps... to running my first full Marathon in Fukuchiyama, Kyoto. From making epic mistakes in day-to-day-living such as filling up my gas tank with diesel... among other things... due to poor language proficiency, all the way up to giving a speech in Japanese in front of Board of Education government officials. From managing to live without a phone, T.V., or car for five months, to accidentally dropping my first iPhone off a 50 meter suspension bridge in one of my Japan’s holiest mountains. From being merely a spectator at cultural festivals to playing an active role in carrying the mikoshi (神輿), a portable Shinto shrine through the streets of Tsuruga, Fukui. From being merely a foreign teacher in a school of 800 kids, to befriending numerous people and unintentionally making my name somewhat known throughout the community I now very much consider my own through occasional random appearances... be it on the paper, the radio, or T.V. From paying a touristy visit to Eiheiji, one of the two most important Soto Zen Buddhist temples, last year... to staying there overnight to practice zazen meditation (a.k.a. the art of “just sitting”) recently. From visiting the local ice-rink for a leisurely skate to becoming a member of a local Japanese ice-hockey team. From experiencing one of the world’s most powerful earthquakes in recent history, to helping organize a charity run to raise funds for the reconstruction efforts in the northeastern part of the country. But most importantly, from meeting and marrying the love of my life, to getting ready to start a family of my own in a land I once dreamed about living in more than a decade ago.

And the script continues...

Hence, I find it truly intriguing reading back on what I’ve written in earlier posts throughout the time I’ve been here. For it quickly becomes evident that even before knowing it for certain, I was already somehow aware of the significance that this place would hold in how my story continues to unfold. The place in which I’ve planted seeds full of promise and potential that were simply waiting to be sown. I suppose the conditions were ripe and the soil was ready to receive them. Thus, in retrospect, it has become clear to me that my life truly flourished as soon as I took off my graduation robe back in May of 09’. A wise man once told me that “one’s life can only be understood backwards,” and I couldn’t agree more. 

For years I have pondered on what destiny/fate really is. Is there really such thing? And if there is, is it something needed to be fulfilled? Is it something that comes to be realized at a certain point in our lives or is it merely a spontaneous fabrication of our minds produced by the social and cultural conditions in which we find ourselves in? Although these are all valid questions, whatever their answer may be... does not seem that important. What is is clear and I find to have the utmost significance is that sooner or later there comes a point in one’s life in which everything seems to fall into place. The key lies in knowing how to ask; in doing the best you can with what you have... wherever you are. In short, in walking confidently in the direction of your own choosing, until your “destiny” is revealed. 

If I could sum up all that I have learned in the past few years is that there is a type of “magic” (to give it a name) in every step of the way that you take. It’s in every person you meet (even if it was a single instant in which your eyes met), it’s in every song and in every book and in every movie and T.V. show you have ever seen. It’s in every place, every country and in every culture you have come to visit or learnt about. It’s in every class you’ve ever taken, in every lecture, and in every word that was said. It’s in every party and in every game you’ve ever been to or played. It’s in every battle you have ever faced (whether you walked out defeated on drenched in glory). It’s in every heart-ache you have ever felt and in every hour you had “nothing to do”. It’s in every moment of frustration and confusion you have ever felt, in every tear you have ever shed, and in every second you have experienced doubt in what you are doing. 

In other words, I have come to understand that one’s appointment with LIFE is nowhere else but in the present moment. The fact that if we ourselves don’t have peace and joy right now, we are less likely to find it tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. The fact that regardless of how challenging life may get at certain points in our lives, those moments are merely momentary, and that as long as we can recall that in this very moment lies all that we truly need (not what we want, but what we need), then not a single instant can pass us by in which we don’t for a moment live in paradise/nirvana (or whatever term floats your boat). 

The fact of the matter is that everything you have ever done and experienced in every single moment you have been alive has had its own purpose. A purpose that perhaps you may not fully understand now, but which nonetheless has helped you get to where you are standing today... in this very instant.  It’s a matter of being able to see and listen to all those signs that have always (and will always) point the way. In this sense, one’s true path is not only beginning-less... but also endless; for at any given moment, we are exactly where we are meant and supposed to be. Everything comes in its due time. 

As Antoine de Saint-Exupery so eloquently reminds us, 

“As for the future, [our] task is not to foresee it, but to enable it”. 

Thereby, allowing yourself to be...

... the captain of your own soul, 

the master of your own destiny.*

_____________________

*Line from the poem "Invictus", written by Victorian English poet, William Ernest Henley ( 1849–1903).