Four things to help you feel happier

Steven Chapman
Nov 2 · 7 min read
Photo by Manuel Cosentino on Unsplash

Below I will speak briefly about 4 Japanese concepts that have been valuable in my life starting by giving a quick overview of what inspired me to write this article. Its my hope that what I’ve written below gives you the motivation and inspiration to do further reading and help you apply these concepts in your life as well.


Inspiration

I’m guilty of being one of those people who’s never been to Japan but still thinks its probably one of the most interesting places to live. I know there will be arguments for other places and against Japan but I just cant help it, right now, in my blissful ignorance, I’m hooked.

With this in mind I’m an easy sell for Japanese cultural products so when I saw a book called Japonisme by Erin Niimi Longhurst I was intrigued. The book is interesting for a number of reasons.

First off: the blurb

Japonisme explores the Japanese art of finding contentment, through practical tips and tricks to live a happier, healthier and more thoughtful life.

Over time I’ve wanted a lot of things, to be smarter, richer, funnier, thinner etc… but right now happier, healthier and more thoughtful? those are a pretty good top 3 things to aspire to. I’ve already found that being more mindful and taking things a bit slower have improved my happiness at work and at home so when I read the strap line on the back of the book I was instantly sold (also aesthetically the book itself is beautiful inside and out, I love a good book cover).

Secondly the author herself

Erin Niimi Longhurst seems to be a very interesting person but in terms of Japonisme the thing that lends her the most credibility is that she has both British and Japanese family and has spent a significant amount of time in book the UK and Japan. Having a foot in both cultures of all the people who might be able to give perspective on the subject it would be clearly be her.


Not every concept I’ve written about below is directly referenced in Japonisme and conversely there are plenty of worth while thoughts, concepts and stories in Japonisme that didn’t make it into this piece of writing. Other smaller pieces of writing, articles and half remembered shows, podcasts and conversations have fed into what is written below.

Concepts

Lets get into it then, below are 4 concepts that most interest me and help enable me to not only feel happier or healthier or more thoughtful but also through boosting those feelings help me with other parts of life. Whether it was writing this article or persisting through a problem at work these core concepts can, I believe, help make anybodies life just that little bit better.

I wont embarrass myself by trying to directly translate anything, I’ll merely be talking about my interpretation of the concepts below.

Omotenashi

Photo by Allie Smith on Unsplash

If I had to sum this up in English I’d say its all about small acts of kindness. Throughout the day you are given many opportunities to make someone else’s day a little easier, a little better, a little happier. I’d say take these opportunities as much as is reasonably possible;

  • Bring someone a small snack if you know that they’re too busy to eat

I’d say this is a little more complicated than just being nice and as such just that bit more valuable as well. I try not only to do nice things, if the context allows it, but to be mindful of what my colleagues, partner or friends are doing and think of how I might make that a little better for them. This forethought is what will distinguish you, improve your relationships and by virtue of that help you feel happier and more content where ever you might be.

Remember its not about being a door mat, its simply about being mindful of the people around you and treating them how you might also like to be treated.

Nemawashi

Photo by Rula Sibai on Unsplash

This word is based in a practice by which a gardener will make several preparatory steps before moving, for example, a tree. These small preparations would make the final act much less traumatising thus increasing the chance of success. I’m a procrastinator, the traumatic all or nothing approach to getting something done was my standard plan of attack. I’m also an over thinker which means that I would not only wait until the last minute to do something but I’d sit there and worry about it up until zero hour as well.

By applying Nemawashi to my life, which in English I would just term careful preparation, I’ve managed to reduce my anxiety and increase the quality of what I do. Since the quality of my outputs have increased my happiness has too since a) I’ve got more opportunity to learn and b) I find the work I do more satisfying.

Remember that your ‘preparations’ can be small even if the end goal is big, just make sure you do things regularly so do 30 minutes at the gym, doodle for 20 minutes, read for 15. Just keep it up, you’ll eventually lose the weight perhaps, improve the skill or finish the book. The biggest tasks are always terrifying until you lay their smallest parts bare.

Shibui

Photo by adrian on Unsplash

Appreciate the simple, the austere, the unassuming. Find beauty in these things and you will find that you feel less like you need the latest most expensive thing and as such you will feel more and more contentment with what you have. This isn’t to say try to live the life of a monk but if your goal is to strive for happiness then perhaps its better to be content with the simpler things rather than the more flashy ostentatious facets of life.

You can apply this to things that you output as well, I tend to over write things, if you’ve gotten up to here you might agree. What this means to me is that I go on and on and maybe reiterate the same thing in several different ways. This can help you be impactful but it can also potentially make the person or people you are trying to communicate with bored or confused. As such in emails I tend to try to be as clear and succinct as I can, a friend at work once told me he had heard of a person who would write what they needed and gave themselves a point for each word they then removed just to make sure that they were wasting as little time as possible.

None the less my main take away from this concept is appreciate the simple things and try not to over complicate what you do.

Kintsugi

Kintsugi is my favourite of these concepts. Kintsugi is the art of repairing broken pottery with golden lacquer. When I think about this I think about how I saw broken or older things as being fundamentally worse than their newer counterparts. Kintsugi turns this on its head by making it so an item is more valuable, more unique and more beautiful because it was broken and the more I’ve thought on it the more I’ve come to decide that it is a succinct metaphor for human growth and human nature.

We are all richer because of our experiences, good and bad and we all have gold where we have healed ourselves from the many injuries over the course of our lives and that we wouldn’t be half as wise, smart or interesting if we hadn’t had to go through this.

I’m in software development, we tend to look at old software as being bad and new software as being good- sometimes with good reason. However this isn’t the only way to look at it as another friend at work helped me understand a long time ago.

I’ll paraphrase him below:

The old things we are so keen to throw away have been crafted and highly optimized over a long time to do the best job that they can do, so while we can enjoy starting from scratch and doing the new fancy thing we also need to be aware that we are going to be throwing away years of effort and wins that may take a long time to get back.

Simply put appreciate the journey that people and things have been on. Nothing lasts forever but generally things can last a lot longer than we expect them to these days.

Bonus word: Sonder

Sonder is not a Japanese word but its something I’ve learned of recently and believe it fits pretty well into a lot of the concepts above. Simply put it is the realisation that another human being has as rich and as complicated a life as you do even if you can see only a tiny fraction of it. Too many of us don’t appreciate the journey others have been on, don’t appreciate that peoples motivations will be informed perhaps just as well as our own and what effect we can have on them so through applying the concepts above you can be more aware of other people and live more harmoniously with them and yourself.


Thanks for reading, this piece was inspired by (amongst other things) the book Japonisme written by Erin Niimi Longhurst. Check out her website here.

Steven Chapman

Written by

Software Test Lead in Manchester UK

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