2024-12-30
The spark is not waiting in the future. You need to spend a great deal of time understanding your past and knowing yourself. Otherwise, you will not know what you truly want to accomplish. This year I came to understand myself to some extent, but it took more than seven years for it to truly sink in. This work continues until death; it has no end. Know thyself.
I had felt that I was bad at setting goals, but I realized it was because I did not understand myself well enough. Once a direction is settled, you naturally become able to set concrete goals. A genuine driving force is born. If you cannot feel that driving force within yourself, it is better not to force concrete goals, but to deliberately hold abstract ones and stay mindful of leaving room.
People cannot create opportunities to learn spontaneously. You must consciously build time for learning into your schedule in advance. Otherwise, you will be swept away by other work. Unless you keep learning, death awaits. Learning together is more fun than learning alone. Next year I want to gain more companions to learn with.
In April this year, I moved from bodyweight training to training at the gym. My amount of exercise increased, and my body and mind have been in excellent shape. Getting stronger is fun, and better physical fitness is the foundation for every activity. Strength training is a battle you win simply by doing it. If you can enjoy overcoming your weaker self, the good effects carry over into everything else.
Energy dwells in people. Until now I had always worked remotely with no office, but this year I rented an office for the first time. Physically commuting brings feelings I never have at home, and talking face to face every day creates a good ba (a good shared state). I believe talking face to face is the only way to truly know another person.
Set aside time to engage with something completely different. Rather than pouring 100% of your time into one thing, deliberately devote around 20% to other activities. This margin gives birth to unexpected ideas. As long as they serve a shared, larger purpose, they will not create contradiction or conflict. If you find yourself worn out, it is because your purpose is not clear.
However wonderful an idea may be, without the power to convey it, it will spread no further. The cause of that situation lies, in most cases, not with the other person but with how you convey it. Conveying is not a one-time act; it requires persistence and repetition. In the process of conveying something again and again, your own thinking becomes more refined. Understand that people are creatures who forget.
To think deeply, first pose a good question. Rather than relying on superficial techniques, you need to be sensitive to questions in everyday life. Once you pose a question, your antennae go up, and you can draw the information you want toward you like gravity. But do not cling to it too much, and do not keep circling back to it too often.
True repayment of kindness means receiving the feelings of the person who was kind to you and passing that kindness on to the next person. If you only repay it directly, the kindness ends within a single generation. But by passing it on to the next person, those feelings are more likely to live on within society and community. The kindness I have received will be handed down to the future, surely, even as it changes form. Do not stop the flow.
People will offer their opinions without end. If you genuinely agree with them, listen openly. If you do not, hold to your convictions no matter what is said. If you let yourself be swept along without being convinced yourself, you end up shifting the blame and lose the chance to learn. If you feel that someone has hit the mark, think it over deeply once more somewhere alone, cast off needless pride, and accept it honestly. That is the first step toward growth.