Hello, Habits

by Fumio Sasaki

  But people who can’t do what they want to do and think they’re a failure will tend to want to say that the results from someone else’s efforts aren’t much. When you haven’t made an effort, you often want to downplay the efforts that someone else has made. I think this is a natural defensive reaction.

  Unproductive criticism like that often stems from self-doubt. The truth looks distorted if you’re teary-eyed. We should try to stay in a good mood to the extent that we can, and be nice to people.

  It isn’t as if everyone aims to become the best of the best

  Anders Ericsson, who has studied top athletes, musicians, and academics, says there isn’t a single person among the crème de la crème who claims that practice is fun. For example, an initiative is under way among marathon runners to run under two hours. It’s really tough to compete in something like the marathon, where people battle over something as clear-cut as times. The challenge is nothing less than trying to run faster than anyone else in the human race who has lived to date, and it requires efforts beyond the imagination.

  Training that pushes you well outside your comfort zone and exceeds previous human limits can’t be easy. What we aim for doesn’t have to be like that. I feel that every person has a “judge” within them.

  You could say that I have a fairly strict judge, because I feel bad when I can’t acquire a habit that I set out to acquire. But even if I can’t get up early or I can’t exercise, I can let myself say, “Oh, well, it’s okay,” and be in a good mood.

  I saw a friend from high school who was very fat. He laughed about it, saying, “But I thought, it’s okay now.” He had accomplished giving up, that is, he made his limitations clear. Though I’m not aiming to achieve the same state, we all need conviction, like my friend.

  Are habits simply primitive living?

  For the simplicity that lies this side of complexity, I would not give a fig, but for the simplicity that lies on the other side of complexity, I would give my life.

  —Oliver Wendell Holmes

  The words above make me want to stop and say, hey, wait a minute. The habits I’m now practicing, when you get right down to it, are all very simple. The psychiatrist John Ratey says, “I think the best advice is to follow our ancestors’ routine.”

  This is how our ancestors’ routine went: They woke when the sun rose, and went to sleep when the sun set. They were mobile, hunting or gathering food—work, exercise—for periods that weren’t too long, received teachings from nature and from their elders—learning—and they sang and danced—hobbies, arts.

  The human body is equipped with a framework that’s optimal for these types of actions. It becomes easy for the neurons for learning to develop when we exercise and stress hormones are released, sometimes so much so that we feel euphoric when there is pain from exercise, as we’ve seen several times in this book.

  But when transportation systems become as developed as they are today, we don’t need to exercise, and there are times when our bodies don’t move because we’ve eaten too much good food. Then it becomes tough to experience the joys that we were initially equipped for.

  Buying a car, enjoying a trip, going to a good restaurant, making sure our children receive a good education. The costs of living today are enormous. We then have to sacrifice our precious sleep, and work to earn money to pay those costs. In a way we misplace our priorities.

  I think that after taking detour after detour, I have obtained, through my habits, the joy that I should have been able to feel naturally simply by living.

  An era when living tied into development

  I feel that, in the past, life might have been full of a sense of joy as development progressed. That was possible because people hadn’t yet broken down their work into specialized fields.

  It wasn’t only the techniques to track and catch our prey that we had to learn in the past. We predicted the weather from our environment, looked for water, wove ropes, and made utensils. We used our ideas to build houses from natural materials. We would draw, and we would tell our fortunes. There must have been many surprises that we couldn’t learn in a single lifetime.

  Even if we don’t go back to the days when people hunted, things were more or less like that until just before World War II, when most people began to work as company employees. Hyakusho (the Japanese word for “farmer”) means a person who can do hyaku (a hundred) jobs. The longer a person lived, the more things there were to learn, so it was natural to respect elders. Living was directly connected to development until that time.

  Why do people seek development?

  According to athlete, artist, and author Gregory Burns, a large amount of dopamine is released when we encounter something unexpected or when we take actions we’ve never taken before—in other words, when we feel that something is new. Burns thinks that more than anything, this may be because obtaining new information about an environment helps survival.

  The psychologist Robert W. White asserted the following: People try to gather information about their environment and thus enhance their ability to work in that environment, and people also have an instinct to reflect on and test what they can do for the environment.

  People who’ve been thrilled by watching Nasu-D, a television producer known for his traveling adventures, and who have dreamed of drifting away to a deserted island, as in films like Cast Away, can probably well understand this instinct. White called this instinct “competence.”

  We probably would have been able to gain a thorough sense of this competence if it were ten thousand years ago when people were leading nomadic lives. If we changed houses periodically, we would have the joy of exploring our new environment each time, and there would also be the joy of gaining control over each new environment.

  This instinct is probably what drives curiosity and the desire for self-development.

  An era when development needs to be sought intentionally

  I feel that unlike our ancestors, people today have to seek opportunities for development intentionally.

  I’ll give you some examples from my own life. As I learned about wild grasses that were edible, I began to look seriously at the grass that grew on the side of the road, and the scenery changed. When I take part in a workshop on plastering or flooring work, I find that I’m interested in renovation methods for stores, and when I took up architecture, hoping to build my own mobile home, I began to look at temples in a different light. After experiencing rafting in a rubber boat, I would ask myself, “How could you go down that river?” whenever I saw a river from my car window.

  You begin to see the world differently. Once upon a time, people used to be able to identify edible grass, structures, ways to cross a river, and so forth through their everyday experiences. Because there’s no longer a need to do things like that today, we have to make a conscious effort to look for opportunities to hone our inquisitiveness.

  This is how I think of moving my body. The more I practice yoga, the more I’m able to hear what my body has to say. The more I run, the closer I get to my body.

  If we don’t cultivate our own opportunities for development, we’ll only be able to find joy in modern society’s “ready-made” fun. Amusement parks and smartphone games are fun, too—it’s because they’re designed so that anyone can enjoy them. But activities structured so that we have to “Enjoy this in this way!”—where the way to have fun is already decided—will eventually bore us. And then, someday, we’ll be bored with ourselves.

  Making it a habit to seek unique opportunities for development, and gaining the sense that we’re always doing something “new”: these are things that satisfy human instinct.

  There’s a hole in the wallet of happiness

  Don’t be caught up with success! Be caught up with development.

  —Keisuke Honda

  There are also other reasons why I feel that constant self-development is necessary. This thing called happiness isn’t something that can be saved up. There’s a big hole in the bo
ttom of a wallet of happiness.

  I told you earlier about Olympic athletes who became depressed, and Apollo astronauts being hit with similar symptoms. Although the scale is completely different, I think I had a similar experience, too. My previous work, Goodbye, Things, sold really well, and it was translated into more than twenty languages. Reprints were continuously issued, and I think hundreds of media outlets in Japan and abroad covered it. I’m still grateful to receive emails from overseas saying, “My life has changed.”

  Seen from the outside, this is a major success. It’s more than enough of an achievement for a previously completely unknown individual to have accomplished. But accomplishing something became no more than a single reference point in the blink of an eye.

  After continuing to say the same thing over and over again at interviews, I had a sense that I was fading away. When I go back and read my diary, I find that I frequently tormented myself immediately after my book sold and I succeeded. I drank too much and got depressed, and kept feeling down about the fact that I could no longer feel something substantial from my work.

  Happiness isn’t like money; you can’t dip into a “savings of happiness” that you put away in the past to make up for a sense of self-doubt today.

  Willpower is affected by the actions you’ve just taken. When you’ve just accomplished something, a sense of self-approval is produced. So it’s necessary to engineer a sense of satisfaction every day, and a sense of substantial development. You can’t obtain a sense of self-approval by talking about past achievements.

  Your uncertainties won’t go away, so deal with your uncertainties well

  Even if you gain experience, your uncertainties won’t go away. The only way is to act together with your uncertainties.

  —Ren Osugi

  Feeling a sense of self-approval every day through my habits, I became able to deal with my uncertainties well. A freelancer will tend to have uncertainties: “Will I keep finding work?” “How much do I have left in my savings?” But I no longer have uncertainties like that.

  It wasn’t when my savings decreased to such-and-such an amount that I was hit with uncertainty. It was at the end of a day when I wasn’t able to do substantial work, and ended up slacking off. It wasn’t objective concerns like the balance of my savings, but instead regrets I had that prompted the onset of uncertainty.

  The same thing happened when I considered issues like weight. There were times that I would get plenty of exercise and keep myself in control, and the next day, I would see that I had gained weight. But I realized that I didn’t feel down at all at times like that. It doesn’t bother me, even if I don’t get results, when I’m doing what I should be doing. What gets me down is when I know I’m not doing what I should be doing.

  Uncertainties and worries are really an issue of moods. It isn’t the problem in itself; it’s about your mood, how you’re looking at the problem. I run when I feel depressed. I improve the blood flow to my brain and get help from dopamine and cortisol. That way, I feel better, and I start to feel that I can resolve my problems in any way I want.

  Uncertainties are necessary

  Pain is disagreeable, but it’s an important sign. If you fracture your leg but can’t feel the pain, you won’t be able to guard the affected site, and it’ll end up getting worse. The same goes for fatigue. It’s a sign that a day has been fulfilling, and that we’ve accomplished something.

  Uncertainty is also a sign. Without it, people would take reckless actions without thinking ahead. We create plans because of our uncertainty. Excessive uncertainty isn’t a good thing, but having an adequate amount is a sign that you’re well-positioned for self-development. I mentioned earlier that when you focus on acquiring habits, you no longer have time to worry. And when you have a daily sense of self-approval through your habits, you become able to deal well with the uncertainties that will never go away.

  Uncertainties are what you feel towards the future. And what lies ahead after you continue to care for the now is the future. There is no way that the future, the result of the now in which you accumulate satisfaction every single day, can turn out badly.

  The mind is made of habits

  All that we are arises with our thoughts.

  With our thoughts we make the world.

  —The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha, translated by Thomas Byrom

  Now, it isn’t only with actions that people often resolve to do at the start of a new year, like getting up early or exercising, that the structure of habits gets to work. Our minds are also made of habits. For example, the words that people say are often habits, in the sense that we say them without much thought.

  When a preschool-age child gets off a bus, it warms our hearts to hear the child saying in a loud voice, “Thank you!” But somewhere along the way as we grow older, we stop saying words of appreciation.

  Although we pay the fare, we won’t be able to reach our destination without the bus driver’s driving. It isn’t as if the charge will increase if we express our feelings of gratitude. There should instead be an increase in the driver’s pride in his work, his sense of self-efficacy, if we express our feelings of gratitude. Thus thinking, I decided to start saying “Thank you” whenever I get off a bus.

  But even with something simple like that, I was on my guard at the start. My heart rate would go up when I pulled out my wallet to pay the fare; I knew that most of the other riders don’t say “Thank you.” But as I continued to do it again and again, the words of gratitude started to come out without particular thought whenever I got off the bus. It became a habit.

  Habits of smiles and kindness

  When someone drops their handkerchief during their commute, I pick it up for them right away. It isn’t an action that has to do with thought, it’s a habit of kindness. What moved me when I went to New York was that everyone helped without a second thought when they saw a person with a heavy baby stroller. Kindness to strangers is a habit, like a reflex. In Japan, everyone may want to help, but they hesitate a little.

  Let’s remember that willpower isn’t something that decreases when it’s used, but rather something that is recovered with our emotions. A little kindness gives joy to both parties. After extending kindness, we should be able to better tackle the challenges in our own lives.

  Some people have nice smiles—contagious smiles. I’m not good at smiling, and the mimetic muscles around my mouth used to be stiff. So I made it a habit to smile when I saw myself in my mirror at home. It may sound weird, but after doing it over and over, I was able to smile automatically, just by seeing a mirror. I’m still not good at showing a smile to other people. But after making it a habit, it’s a little easier than it used to be when I’m having my picture taken. Something that you thought was your personality can change with a simple habit.

  The habit of thought

  I used to think that I was really bad at public speaking, but I made up my mind to do it so that I could talk about minimalism, and I appeared on a lot of radio shows. Then, for some reason, the answers came smoothly no matter what I was asked.

  It was no wonder, because I’d thought about minimalism for a long time, and while writing Goodbye, Things I had repeatedly asked myself questions I anticipated being asked. So for me, the questions were my trigger, and the answers I gave were a routine that I was already familiar with.

  It probably isn’t public speaking in and of itself that people aren’t good at. Anyone, no matter how smart they are, would probably stammer if they were suddenly asked to comment on an issue that they’d never even thought about.

  In these ways, we can say that the statements that suddenly come out of a person’s mouth are shaped by their habits of thought. There are various thoughts that have become habits for me as a result of continuing to think about minimalism.

  While the dominant value in the world today is that the more things you have, the better off you are, I’ve learned that you can have plenty with just a few things. I developed a h
abit of thinking about the question, “Are the values believed in the world today true?”

  I came to understand that you lose something if you obtain something, and you will gain something when you lose something. I started to ask myself, “What is the value of not having something?”

  For example, maybe I see a family with kids who look happy during a picnic at the park, and they will sometimes look dazzling, even to me, though I don’t have children. But the next moment, I remember the value of freedom, and the carefree life that I’ve been able to live.

  You can start to automatically recognize the values that are important to you without having to inspect them each time. There’s no way you’ll forget what’s important to you; you should simply put those values into practice every day. These are habits of thinking. The values you’ve chosen over and over again will eventually become habits. You’ll be able to choose with barely any conscious thought.

  The artist and writer Taro Okamoto’s choices were always clear-cut as well: “Whatever is likely to fail.” He always chose to take on tough challenges that looked like they would ruin his success.

  You don’t consciously worry about most choices; they’re decided instantly by your habits. People don’t have the capacity to consider every choice in detail and choose what’s best. But regardless of the results, they can accept the choices that they’ve made if they’re aligned with their own values.