I took the day off yesterday.  I studied a bunch of lessons in genki, watched a little anime, and caught myself up on the Colbert Report.  It did me good because it gave me time to reflect on things.  Did you know that some Japanese toilets have sinks built into their tops?  The ones in my house do.  But that’s not what I was reflecting on.

I mentioned last time that I was in a funk; feeling funky, if you will.  I thought about it and I’ve realized a couple of things.  The first is that I was working under a lot of expectations; ones I adopted from other people and ones that I had set for myself, like doing lots of cool things and getting really good at the language.  So, part of me was trying to cater to others, and part of me expected too much of myself in the first place.  I realized that this was causing me to push myself really hard and be dissatisfied with myself.

A while back, I realized that the best way to be happy is to do what you want.  Sounds selfish, and it is, but if you always do what someone else wants, your own wants will never be catered to, and that’s gonna make you sad, among other things, unless of course your desire is to serve other people.  Ultimately, everyone is just doing their thing; what they want to do, and that’s totally ok, within certain limits of course.  The point is that I wasn’t doing that; I was trying to push myself to do things because I thought it might fulfill these expectations designed for other people.  I realized that I needed to start doing what I wanted.

This involves staying in my comfort zone more.  I’m going to push it and do things I’m unfamiliar with, but I’m also going to watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, I’ll play some games, and read some books, and be a recluse maybe once a week.  We’ll see.  More than anything, I need to be myself.

This whole dilemna made me realize another thing: I’ve been in tourist mode for the past 2 1/2 weeks.  Every spare moment I had I would try and do something, go see some place, try some new food, etc.  When I wasn’t doing anything I’d feel guilty, like I should be doing something.  I’m in Kyoto, but I hadn’t really gotten used to the fact that I’m actually living here, not just staying here temporarily.  It’s hard to describe, but it ties into being comfortable: it’s ok to be comfortable and just chill out.

Part of me realized that this in itself opens up new doors that aren’t open to tourists.  For instance, today I did my homework in the Imperial Palace Grounds.  Awesome, right?

But yeah, that’s basically what I’ve come to realize this weekend.  I live here now, so it’s ok to be comfortable, to not have everything planned, and to just do what I feel like, because that’s how you make stories.  A friend of mine put it well, and I’m paraphrasing, “It’s all about that; if you want to go down that alley, do it.  If you don’t want to do something, then don’t.”

~Shimon