The Middle Way...

Hey, everyone! Seems like I can upload a new post once a week lately! I wish I could post twice a week, but I guess that's impossible for me at least for now... *sigh*

Alright. In this post, I am going to write about balance. Life (and all the facets of life) is all about balance (= moderation). Sounds so simple, doesn't it? But it's easier said than done actually, at least for me!

I am pretty bad at keeping a good, healthy balance in many aspects of my life. For example, I am a hard worker. It might sound strange to say something like this about myself, but I truly am. lol I don't try to find a way to look like I'm working hard when I'm just sabotaging. When I have a homework assignment to do, I really work hard on it. I don't write trashy papers. When I have to write a paper, I always do my best to write a good one, one that is interesting enough for the professor to read it. I would hate myself so much if I did try to write a boring one just to finish the paper more quickly so that I could free myself from the duty. Moreover, I don't want to waste the professor's time by forcing him to read my meaningless paper. Isn't it rude, don't you think?

I know, it's good to be hardworking; it should be encouraged. But sometimes, it gets too much and too intense. Sometimes (or more than sometimes...? lol), I even feel guilty about taking a break. I feel like I should be studying more, instead of watching Netflix (Oh, by the way, have you watched Iron Fist? I highly recommend it! If you haven't watched it, stop reading this blog, and go watch it right away! lol) or reading comic books even when I deserve a good break. There are other examples like this. When I assign myself a rule, say, "I am going to eat healthy," I need to eat 100% healthy 100% of the time. I would eat lots of vegetables, no junk foods, and I would not have snacks or desserts at all. I would be so strict to myself, and make myself suffer. I also tend to work too hard on my romantic relationship. I am a girlfriend to an amazing man, and I always want to be the perfect girlfriend. I force myself to be nice, kind, and pretty all the time, to cook a lot for him, to help him with his work, etc., and tend to wore myself out. But I can't do that permanently, and so, I sometimes "fail," which leads to self-hate. And when I feel depressed, both of us are unhappy.

So, the point I am making here is: being hardworking is good, but when you start to work hard too much, and work too hard, you start to suffocate yourself, and that's when things become problematic.

This semester, I am taking a class called "Japanese Thoughts and Religion," and in this class, we are learning about Buddhism, especially Zen. The semester just started this month, and we've had only 2 classes so far since the beginning of this semester, so I still have so much more to learn obviously, even though I have already learned new things. I hope I can share more by the time the semester ends in July!

In the last class, we briefly learned about Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha, "the awakened one"), and his life. He was born in a royal family. After he was born, a holy man prophesied that he would either become a great king or a great monk. His father wanted his son to be a king just like himself, and decided that he would provide anything to keep his son in the palace. He thought, if his son is satisfied with his life in the palace, he would not be interested in the world outside of the palace (= the real world where people need to experience suffering sometimes, if not all the time).

But as you've probably guessed, he couldn't cover up the truth like that forever. Siddhartha Gautama became interested in what and how would the world outside of the palace be like, and one day, he got a chance to get out of the palace, and see the real world for himself. Of course, he was shocked to see how the real world looked like. He had never suffered; everything in the palace was so beautiful. Everyone in the palace was young, healthy, and beautiful. He encountered old people, ill people, and also dead people for the first time in his life. He returned to the palace, but his life in the palace wasn't the same anymore. He decided to leave the palace to go on a journey to find the truth, and did so when he was 29, leaving his duty as the price, and the future king, his wife, and his new born child behind.

This is the story that I heard in the class (I heard the same story in another class that I took last year.) of the life of Siddhartha Gautama before he started his journey to the enlightenment. And from that time, it took 6 years for him to achieve the enlightenment (= nirvana). First, he tried to achieve the enlightenment (= to be released from suffering, because according to him, life is suffering) through tough training which made him suffer physically, such as starving himself for days. But it didn't bring him any good outcome, and he wasn't satisfied. It didn't work. And one day, he realized that he didn't have to choose the extreme way; he could choose the middle way. I had to go through this part rather quickly and briefly because I do not know much in details yet... Sorry.

Too less is not good, too much is not good either. The moderate amount is always good. And this principle applies to everything. I know this principle, and I understand what this principle means. But for me, it's not so easy to practice it in my everyday life. If I wish to release myself from suffering (because I am suffering from doing too much!), however, I need to practice it, and learn to balance myself. It took Buddha 6 years to learn that it's all about the balance, and I'm wondering how many years it'll take for me to learn that. Definitely more than 6 years! lol

I hope you enjoyed the little story about Buddha. Try not to push yourself too much! Keep in mind: a good moderation is the key! See you in my next post!

Excuse My Complaining! :P

Hello! I hope you all are doing well! I just got back to school this week, and so far, all the classes I am taking this semester seem exciting and interesting! I do see that I am going to be very busy with schoolwork, but it's going to be so much fun, and I'm happy to think that I'll have learned lots of things at the end of this semester. 

Ugh, but it sucks that I will definitely have to miss some classes because of the notorious job hunting! I see a major contradiction here. We're students, right? As students, our first priority should be school, classes, and studying. Why do we have to miss a class to be at a particular place at a particular time for a job interview? This is so strange. If all companies do job interviews on weekends, that really helps! But most companies don't... Well, you can tell the interviewer (the company you're applying for) that you won't be able to come because you have a class, but the company would simply reply, "Oh, we're sorry, but we need you to come here like any other candidates." *sigh* In my opinion, students and companies should be equal. Job hunting should not be just about us students seeking opportunities. It should also be about companies seeking good human resources. Job hunting should not be just about us students go meet companies, and plead. "Pick me! Pick me!" It should also be about companies approaching students they want. "Pick us! Please join our company!" 

So, all the companies out there! If you really care about students (aka your future or potential candidates), you'd better be more flexible! Your job interview dates should be negotiable! Let students be students, and let students do what students are supposed to do while they're students. What's normal isn't always the best, and by the same token, what many people do isn't always the right thing to do. I mean seriously, missing even one class really hurts. Professors and lecturers understand that students have this issue, and many of them kindly excuse our absences when we have to miss their classes because of job-hunting related events. So, we may not lose our attendance points. BUT. You cannot listen to the lecture if you don't show up. And I don't like that. I would always want to listen to lectures directly by myself, and take notes directly from what I heard in lectures. That's the point of lectures and schools in general in the first place, isn't it? What's the point of showing up to lectures and school if you can just pass the class by getting copies of your friends' notes? I go to classes because I want to learn. I want to listen to what lecturers are saying, and interpret what they are saying by myself. Borrowing my friends' notes isn't the same as listening to lectures myself. 

Alright, so... since this post came to be about complaining, let me complain about one more thing. lol Some students just cannot shut their mouths even during classes! This phenomenon tends to happen more frequently in large classes. And those who do not keep their mouths shut tend to sit not near, but far from the lecturer. Well, first of all, how disrespectful! They're being so rude to the person who's speaking. I mean, how would you feel if people are paying no attention or whatsoever to you, and talking with each other about things that are completely unrelated to what you're talking about when you're standing in front of the class doing a presentation? That's not very comfortable, isn't it? Then why do you dare to do that to other people? Please think. PLEASE. 

Moreover, those noisy people are violating other people's right to listen to the lecture. You may think you and your friend(s) are more like whispering to each other than talking. But in almost all cases, you're not the only ones who are doing that, and believing the same damn thing. Students who are actually listening to the lecture feel noisiness behind them because there are lots of whispering going on simultaneously. And we who take classes seriously really dislike those disrespects to classes, lecturers, and learning. A classroom should be a sacred place devoted for learning and motivation to learning. It should not be violated by those noisy, immature students. 

We're collage students; we're all at least 18 years old or older (because you can't skip grades in Japan). And lecturers still have to ask the class to be quiet. They should be ashamed of themselves. And really, nobody's asking you to participate. You can decide by yourself and for yourself whether you want to be in the classroom or not. So, if you want to keep talking with your friends, just leave. Go elsewhere. Go to the cafeteria. And talk as much as you want. I mean, you're so uncool because you aren't cool enough to work hard on your schoolwork, and you don't have the guts to not showing up to classes at all either. So, make up your minds, please! I'm tired of having to be irritated by this problem. Don't be an adult who really is just a baby with a body of an adult. 

Can't We Have Peace?

Hi, everyone! It's been a while since I last uploaded a post. To be honest, I haven't been able to have time to sit down alone in front of my laptop to write a post because I had been with people a lot this week. My sister visited me, and stayed at my place this week, which was so much fun, and also, I was at my boyfriend's place for the past few days. It's been a while since last time when I was at my house alone actually!

Oh, by the way, it's the cherry blossom season again in Japan! This spring, it came a little late that usual, but I was lucky enough to have a full day to walk around, and see those beautiful pink flowers since the school hasn't started yet. It actually started today, but I don't have any class on Fridays this semester, so basically, I am going back to school from Monday next week! I am so excited about my new classes because I am mostly taking the ones that I really don't have to. I am almost done with all my required classes for my major, which means that I can take extra classes because I have more time than previous years, when I had to spend my time taking required classes. I am so hyped up!

Ok, so this time, I am going to talk about a sad thing that happened recently. And I am so sad that I have to talk about this. Because... seriously, when we can say that we have a peaceful world? We human beings have had two major wars. But sadly, it seems like those aren't enough for us to really learn that we shouldn't rely on violence anymore. I feel like people want peace, but not many people actually believe that we can really achieve that with everyone working together. People want peace, but they think that's too difficult and complicated. Or maybe they think there's no such thing as peace. They may think that they want to have faith in people and people's good will, but too many times their hope has been betrayed.

I was watching a news program the other day, and when I heard this, I was speechless... because I was so shocked to hear the news. Japanese government said that it would not participate in the negotiations on a treaty to ban nuclear weapon. I will link an article from The Japan Times, so that you can read it. I was shocked because Japan should be willing to talk about this. Japan is the only country that have suffered from attacks using nuclear weapons. We should be the first country to raise our hands, and say, "Hey, we should work together to make a better world." I see that Japanese government is making a political move. They stepped out of the negotiations because Japan is "under the U.S. nuclear umbrella," as it says on the article from The Japan Times. Japan can't really say the world doesn't need nuclear weapons, huh? This is really frustrating. I think those people who actually was there in 1945, and experience all the damage and sorrow brought by nuclear weapons are also frustrated.

I know we can't just say, "Alright, so all kinds of nuclear weapons are banned from tomorrow, so let's just dump all the things we have now." We need a steady plan, and follow it step by step. But rather just trying to find a way to achieve the world without any nuclear threat, Japan just simply stepped out. Easy as it is.

I mean... what are we doing?! Is this the peace we want? Maybe it's the peace we deserve. "Haha! We have this deadly weapon here! You see that? You know what? This one can be really bad! You don't wanna see me fire this, do you? No, you don't. And we don't wanna do that either. Alright, so we don't fight." So we live in a peaceful world where people still need to fear somebody may fire nuclear weapons someday. Is this peace? Are we happy?

I feel like this is the same as gun control. People always say, "But what if...?" "But how would you protect yourself and your family when things happened?" So, maybe we want to, but apparently, we don't believe in the theory of innate goodness of human beings. We have been living on the peace based upon the idea that we human beings are fundamentally and inherently evil.

Well, living in Japan is easy in terms of not having to live with fear of civil wars or bombings from foreign countries. But in many places around the world, people have to and forced to live with fear. I see innocent people getting injured, being killed, crying, and suffering on the television, and it hurts to watch those pictures. I can't stop myself from crying. I want to switch to different channels, but I always don't because for those people, that's the reality they cannot escape from. And then I get angry at myself for enjoying this ordinary life. And... our leader announced that they were refraining from talking about the treaty to ban nuclear weapons? I am so ashamed.

The world free of nuclear weapons might sound crazy in this world with nuclear weapons. But you can't make things come true if don't believe you can. I don't have any kids yet, but when I do in the future, I want to tell them people can have a peaceful world with confidence. I don't want to feel like I'm lying to them. I don't want to tell them we can't have a peaceful world because we're all too scared. I don't want to tell them it's better to be armed than to have faith in humanity.

I know this is a complicated, difficult issue. But we all want peace. It's simple; we all want peace. Can't we have it?

Reference:

• A treaty to ban nuclear weapons. (2017, April 1). Retrieved April 7, 2017, from http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/04/01/editorials/treaty-ban-nuclear-weapons/#.WOd5zoiGNPY