Day 29 of writing every day.
I’ve basically reclaimed all the time I would have spent gaming this past 3-day weekend and I was kind of surprised by how much time I started to feel like I have on a day I had no Aikido at all.
There is of course still enough time to run some errands and whatnot on Aikido days on the weekend, but just having nothing scheduled and not feeling forced to do anything as a result of addiction cravings felt nice.
I read a book for a while, ate out, and got some grocery shopping done. I thought about getting some study time in but was falling asleep in the early evening. So I napped, which wasn’t ideal for getting the best sleep at night given how late it was for a nap.
To prevent the nap from accidentally turning into full-blown sleep, I set an one hour alarm but ended up waking up half an hour later and then still feeling drowsy, decided to nap some more.
After the nap I was still a little groggy but my body was nudging me to get busy, so I decided to use the time to clean my room. It had been a goal of mine to do it for a while and to get some meaningful progress done over the new year break. Very little had happened and after cutting myself off from gaming—and finding that I had both time and the willpower as a result—I decided to just get started.
Cleaning isn’t one big ordeal to just get over with. When there’s clutter that’s built up over the years there’s a dialogue you need to have with yourself and why you’re keeping certain things around you have no use for and that don’t really have any sentimental value either.
So I started by cleaning out a drawer that had a bit of dust because it couldn’t close properly due to the amount of stuff inside. I went through the items and tossed old informational pamphlets that I had no reason to keep and opened up a box I used to store old cables to find Ethernet cables that I put away because they didn’t work anymore. I don’t even know why I didn’t just toss them away in the first place.
Anyways, there’s still plenty of stuff to go through and I’m done running away from the internal conversation I need to have with myself. It’s something that I saw people go through much more dramatically in footage shown on Alone by participants who spent weeks alone on their own in the wilderness.
I don’t have the skills to go out in the wild and live for an extended period of time, but having lived alone for ten years now I compare my situation to theirs and realized how many distractions I have that allow me to dodge the much needed reflection I’ve been consciously and subconsciously avoiding.
Clarity in Agony
Returning to work after the 3-day weekend was agonizing. I don’t know why exactly but perhaps it’s because I’ve been feeling a lot clearer in the head than I’ve felt in some time.
I’ve felt like I’ve been making so many compromises working my current job that I’ve never really had to in my past two jobs in Japan, and all I’m really asking for is a normal schedule to let me be able to enjoy my weekdays by being able to practice Aikido.
What made today extra stressful was the boredom of just sitting and waiting for so long in a large but stifling room. I’m in my thirties and I’ve felt like I’ve never had the chance to really let whatever talents I might possess shine and be used to their full potential.
It feels like I’m just being told to do things that set the bar far lower than what was set for applicants applying for the job and getting paid far less than the mental and physical strain plus exhaustion caused by it. I feel like I’m simply wasting away without ever getting a chance to do whatever it is I might do best.
It’s been a while since I felt this feeling but I felt like I could start crying at the end of the day. My body was aching from being seated most of the day and just forcing myself to stay awake during the boredom of waiting attentively for instructions that could be carried out by anyone else and that required zero need for my Japanese/English skills.
It wouldn’t be that far off the mark to say I’m just being asked to press a button on cue. My brain screams to be a lot more active than the task presented before me and my body wants to move more. But all I can do in my position is just go with it and do as I’m told. I’d be lying if I said I’m not feeling depressed by my current situation.
It’s not very impressive if all I’m being reconciled with is that things could be worse, especially if I’m working for a company that continues to grow in both size and profit overall. It’s even worse when I’m being paid wages well below someone the average for someone my age with a bachelor’s degree that has proven language skills only a minority of foreign workers in Japan possess.
So I’ve made up my mind to get programming skills to bulk up my resume and qualify for jobs that pay me what I believe my time and labor should be worth. It sucks that people who work hard all across the world for wages that are grossly undervalued while others do work that might require some thinking but offer exponentially more income than those who labor all day.
I hope the world will become more just and want to be able to contribute to that becoming a reality, but for now, all I can do is do what I can to get to where I want to be in life before society decides I’m too old to change anything anymore.
Thanks for reading!
One Chance Works 