Skip to main content

Joy




It is Golden Week here in Japan, the time of year when people take a break from business as usual.

Instead, this week is reserved for leisure, relaxation and vacation.

Golden Week is a joyful time. So, I figured that would be the topic for this month.

Joy.

It is quite evident that I am surrounded by it. Although this society is known for a disciplined work ethic, it does so in a joyful manner.

Or so it seems to me.

I can recall passing through Tokyo Station, once. It was about 9pm on a Tuesday. I was exhausted after a full day of work.

The train was stopped and I was gazing out the window. Sitting next to me were a group of smartly-dressed professionals of some sort. They were chatting and laughing until one man got off the train.

Now, in my home society, in the United States, the natural thing to do when leaving a conversation is to exchange goodbyes and walk away.

But, not in this instance at Tokyo Station. The man did not walk away after departing his colleagues. Instead, he stood directly outside the window. Directly outside the window I was gazing from. A mere sheet of glass separating the two of us. Strange, I thought.

Then, he began waving at his colleagues, smiling with his eyes, and bowing out of respect for them. This lasted several minutes before the train took off again.

Really strange, I thought, until it all made sense.

This man probably worked all day, just like me. Yet, his energy did not show it. He was making a conscious effort to display joy before returning to his place of rest.

He was emptying all of his joy into the world.

I learned from this that, perhaps, joy is an action.

Joy is not something that manifests without effort. It is something that must be prioritized to exist. Something that takes practice to exist in oneself.

Let us work to enjoy more.

J.S


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Take Your Time

  I arrived at the bottom of Mt. Fuji at 7am. Before starting, a man said that I had 12 hours to complete the trail, in order to catch the final bus home for the night. Otherwise, I would have to sleep on the mountain. I thought 12 hours was a sufficient amount of time, but it caused me to rush at first. After a half-hour, I was exhausted and contemplated quitting. The ground felt like sinking rocks the size of tennis balls. The trail was steep.  What should I do? I asked myself. Go back down? Rest? Go only half-way up? Then it occurred to me, go slowly. A motto for life, perhaps. Life may feel fast, but if one takes their time, slowly and steadily, they can enjoy it more. Moving forward, the next 4 hours consisted of a slow ascent up the mountain. I was literally stepping about 6 inches at a time. This allowed me to keep my breath, something I lost at the beginning. Eventually, I found myself at the 8th station, the final stop before the summit.  It was 1pm. 6 hours befo...

The Uber Summer

295 trips. A small sample of the people who make up Philadelphia and it’s suburbs, but 295 trips can really teach an Uber driver about the beauty of stranger interaction. Before I talk about the lessons learned driving for Uber, I must admit that the job itself wasn’t even slightly pretty. Dents and potholes and wrong turns and near-empty gas tanks all hindered my joy rides through the city. The amount of fast food I consumed in the last three months was out of desperation, not choice. Let’s just say Burger King’s 10-piece $1.49 nugget combo was part of a calming, therapeutic ritual, otherwise known as a dinner break. The road rage was real, the pay was shitty, and the tickets subtracted too much my earnings. Okay the tickets were mostly my fault, resulting from parking at an unfed meter for 20 minutes or zooming through an E-Z pass lane. I also feel like people driving on congested roads are only capable of two emotions; neutral and angry. This was unsettling to deal with. Traffic...

Small World

Moving to Japan hits you in stages. I think I'm past the initial "culture shock" stage and have moved into the “gratitude” stage. I'm fully aware that I've moved across the world and stick out like a sore thumb, but at the same time I know that this place has everything I could possibly need. I’m aiming for consistent daily growth. Japan is the ideal country to spend my 24th year. It sort of feels like a bubble, though. The people here are disciplined and seem to have this killer instinct to protect the countries pureness. Almost like they know that the rest of the world is toxic. What has been the most unbelievable to witness are the universal similarities between the people of our world. We all eat, sleep, and have our inner thoughts. It's terrifyingly beautiful how similar we are. Children are explorers. All kids bask in their wandering minds. Everyone has emotional struggle and success, it’s just a matter of which wave you’re currently riding. The...