Bend the rules, never break your principles
At a young age, we learn that the world is made up of rules to be followed. In particular, our parents and school foster us to follow rules with the intent that we have a good foundation, and that those rules will continue to guide us, so that we make good decisions that align well with other people…before at some point, we realise it’s possible to bend or break the rules.
To what extent we choose to follow rules or not, is very much a matter of personality, but also the culture we grow up in. In Japan, perhaps more than most places in the world, rules play a very important role. Rules are essential for people to feel comfortable and ensure a certain degree of control in the world around us. Everything from how we behave on trains, how we communicate with each other, our rituals and behaviour at work, to how hospitals and public institutions function is all governed by a surprisingly detailed set of rules.
Japan is often perceived as one of the most well functioning societies in the world, which probably has some foundation in this highly rule based way of thinking. At the same time, Japan is also perceived as one of the most conservative countries in the world, the Japanese corporate giants of the past are struggling to remain competitive, overwork and lack of gender equality is the norm and suicide statistics amongst the highest in the world…
