We Don’t Always Live Up To Who We Think We Are And That’s Okay — A Reflection on “How Do You Live?”
On Discerning Our Life And Choices
Four years ago, I wrote about the book How Do You Live?, inspired by Hayao Miyazaki’s then unreleased film of the same name.
Before, I picked it up because I anticipated the movie. However, I didn’t expect it have such a deep impression on me that I’d find myself returning to it, no longer as just a story, but as a lifeline.
Four years later, four years older and a bit more tender with the past, I found myself drawn to it again.
This time, I read it in its original language through the Japanese manga, and though I already know the story, it hit deeper this time.
What surprised me most wasn’t how the story changed.
It’s how I did.
What moved me before still moved me now, but the feelings had more weight and lived understanding.
Because this time, like Copper, I now understand what it’s like to want to do good, but fall short.
And I’m learning to forgive myself for all the things I didn’t do better.
Unlike the English novel which opens with Copper’s fascination, the manga begins with something darker — remorse.
The English novel started lightly, but the manga opens with the foreshadowing of Copper’s betrayal.
Copper, haunted by guilt, is bedridden with fever. He remembers breaking a promise to his friends: that when they were beaten, to stand by them.
When that moment came, however, fear took over so he stayed hidden, and all he could do was watch.
When his friends saw him afterward, they said nothing.
They just walked away. Did they see Copper hiding? Maybe they didn’t.
But that silence cut more than anything.
As the regret creeped into Copper, all he could do was replay the situation, in his mind, about what he should’ve done.
And for the first time, Copper thought that maybe he isn’t who he once thought he was.
This, for me is the most important lesson in the manga.
Because we all fail.
Because we all fall short of who we thought we’d be.
Because as long as we’re human, we will make mistakes.
But maybe it’s what we do after that, how we live, that matters more.
From the beginning, Copper always tried to discern the right thing. He was always a good friend to Kitami and Mizutani, and made sure Uragawa won’t feel left behind again.
But in his biggest moment, he fails.
That failure feels familiar. Maybe every person has a memory like this, not as dramatic maybe, but just as heavy.
A time we let someone down.
A moment we didn’t speak up.
A time we failed to live up to who we thought we were.
When Copper breaks down to his uncle, his uncle doesn’t scold him.
Instead, he tells Copper something painfully honest, to face it. He has to own up to what happened. Maybe his friends will forgive him. Maybe they won’t.
Either way, it’s his to carry and accept.
Because regret doesn’t go away by hiding, but it softens its grip when acknowledged.
What followed after this incident was what stayed with me the most.
Of all the scenes in the book, it was that intimate moment between Copper and his mom that felt the most redeeming.
She tells him about something she regrets from her youth: seeing an elderly woman lift heavy bags on a stone staircase.
She wanted to help. But she hesitated. And the moment passed.
Copper’s mom mentions that to this day, she sometimes still thinks of that incident though it had already been about 20 years ago.
Copper’s mom then shares an insight about regret.
That even when we become adults, we can look back with regret, and when we take a serious look in our lives, we all may have something like this. The older we get, the more consequences our actions will have, the harder they will be then to take back.
However, that doesn’t mean we’ll be stuck on them forever. We can grow from them. We can even use those painful memories to encourage the good things in us to grow.
So when we think about our mistakes, we can feel sorry. But it’s what we do moving forward that matters more.
His mom was right. If our mistakes transform us for the better, they won’t be a waste.
Her words moved me. It’s not the kind of advice that can be said just to sound good. That realization can only come with time.
She didn’t tell him to be perfect. She told him how to be human.
So how do we live?
We live by trying.
We live by reflecting.
We live by forgiving ourselves and choosing, each day, to do better than yesterday.
Not perfectly.
Just the best we can.
When I read this story in its original Japanese, I found something I didn’t four years ago.
Maybe it was always there. Or maybe it was something that grew in the spaces of my own regrets.
Either way, I’m grateful.
For the story.
For the years.
For the chance to try again.
